This study examined how the practice of prepublishing prompts used on the writing section of the Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®) General Test impacts test-preparation behavior, test performance, test validity, and examinee perceptions of the value of prompt prepublication. Researchers imposed modest experimental control over how participants…

What strategies can improve test scores? According to research done by Amrein and Berliner, who studied 18 states with high stakes testing, their conclusion was that students did not necessarily score higher and often remained at the same level prior to the introduction of the high stakes testing. In other research done by Carnoy and Loeb, their…

This is a bibliographic list of coaching studies on the SAT conducted by external researchers.

During oral exams at the German distance learning university, we noticed that students fear that they will be faced with questions that they have not anticipated. In our opinion, this is mainly because students have no chance to train and thereby gather positive experiences with exam situations as they are distributed all over Germany and thus it…

Literacy assessments are transforming the contexts of secondary instruction. This article reports how literacy assessments are shaping the instructional choices of nine English Language Arts teachers who work in three different states in northeastern United States--New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Through interviews, the teachers reported…

GED [General Educational Development] Tests offer many young adults who have left school a second chance to gain a credential, yet many educators have concerns about policies for very young test-takers and how they perform on the GED Tests. The GED Testing Service sets the absolute minimum age for taking the GED Tests at 16 years of age. However,…

Group activities are becoming more and more popular in the teaching of second/foreign languages and other subjects in Thailand and around the world. Since about 1970, a great deal of work has gone into research and methodology in order to develop ways that teachers can help their students learn more effectively and happily in groups. Many people…

In this article, the author reports on a unique project which is helping members of gypsy and traveller communities to pass their driving theory test, and, in the process, to improve their literacy skills. The Sheffield Gypsy Traveller Support Group is a centre offering a wide range of specialist services to gypsies and travellers, from welfare…

What are some remediation programs for students who do not pass high stakes exit exams? Regardless of one's personal beliefs about high stakes exit exams, 52% of all high school students in the United States who are in public schools will be required to take and pass an exit exam. Nationally, these tests are gaining momentum. In most cases,…

This exploratory study was conducted in an introductory biology course to determine 1) how students used the large lecture environment to create their own learning tasks during studying and 2) whether meaningful learning resulted from the students' efforts. Academic task research from the K-12 education literature and student approaches to…

In recent years academics have commonly bemoaned the lack of essay-writing ability exhibited by their students. Whether or not the halcyon era in which undergraduates routinely knew how to construct a persuasive essay ever truly existed, it is certainly the case that contemporary students can benefit from advice on preparation of a long-format…

The aim of this report is to present the findings of the second phase in a longitudinal study of the impact of changes in the TOEFL® test on teaching and learning in test preparation classrooms. The focus of this phase was to monitor six teachers from five countries in Central and Eastern Europe as they received news about changes in the TOEFL and…

People know that coaching for verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests can improve scores, although gains can be modest. Nevertheless, scores on retaking such tests can remain stable or even decrease following coaching. People do not know if such findings apply to coaching for tests of attainment. However, research into formative assessment shows…

The increasing availability and performance of computer-based testing has prompted more research on the automatic assessment of language and speaking proficiency. In this investigation, we evaluated the feasibility of using an off-the-shelf speech-recognition system for scoring speaking prompts from the LanguEdge field test of 2002. We first…

This applied dissertation was designed to provide better access to current preparation strategies for passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test. The test preparation strategies did not meet the needs of the students. The students did not know how to use the computer to study for the test and did not know how to study at…