The instructional level is helpful when identifying an intervention for math or reading, but researchers have yet to investigate whether the instructional-level concept can be applied to early writing. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous research by examining technical features of potential instructional-level criteria…

Many assessment experts believe it is essential to develop faculty-driven assessment tools in order to engage faculty in meaningful assessment that can improve student learning. Tennessee Technological University (TTU) has been involved in an extended effort during the last ten years to develop, refine, and nationally disseminate an instrument to…

The purpose of this study was to develop and calibrate an assessment system, or bank, using the latest measurement theories and methods to promote valid and reliable student assessment in physical education. Using an anchor-test equating design, a total of 30 items or assessments were administered to 5,021 (2,568 boys and 2,453 girls) students in…

Little research currently examines language instruction educational programs (LIEPs) in states with a more recent growth of the Latino English learner population. To meet this need, the authors examined the content each of the state LIEPs, focusing chiefly on the extent to which the types of language support, as well as the stipulations associated…

The interrater reliability of the Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) was investigated under the condition that interviewers had to have been trained and/or experienced in its administration and scoring. Both corrected and noncorrected Pearson's product-moment coefficients were generated to assess interinterviewer, interrespondent, and mixed interrater…

Student involvement in their own assessment can add reflection and metacognition to the learning process. Based on this idea, an assessment instrument was developed to self-assess college students' mathematical problem solving tasks. The main objective of this exercise is to improve student learning. The assessment instrument contains three items:…

This dissertation presents three research articles in the area of preparing preservice teachers for Virtual Schooling (VS). The context of the dissertation is embedded in a Teacher Education Goes Into Virtual Schooling (TEGIVS) project under the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education. The first…

The Obama administration's education legacy could hinge on the success of the Race to the Top (RTT) program. Now more than ever, with the Department of Education's recent announcement of the round-two winners, RTT has received its share of praise and criticism. The praise stems from RTT's success in fostering policy discussions about the…

With growing public interest in children's success in kindergarten, more studies are examining prekindergarten (pre-k) classroom characteristics and their relationship to children's school readiness. These studies, for the most part, have focused on classroom environment characteristics associated with overall program quality, especially as…

This paper focuses on the role of multimodal technologies in facilitating reflective processes and the subsequent assessment of reflectivity for students in pre-professional programs. Reflective practice has been established as a critical tool for developing identity in and on practice. This paper will focus firstly on reviewing salient literature…

The authors investigated four spelling scoring metrics: total words correct, correct letter sequences, correct sounds, and phonological coding scoring (developed by Tangel and Blachman) across two studies with children in kindergarten. The relationships between spelling scores and measures of reading, phonological awareness, and writing skills…

Dynamical models based on three steady-state equations for the law of effect were constructed under the assumption that behavior changes in proportion to the difference between current behavior and the equilibrium implied by current reinforcer rates. A comparison of dynamical models showed that a model based on Navakatikyan's (2007) two-component…

Clear and empirically supported diagnostic symptoms are important for proper diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders. Unfortunately, the symptoms of many disorders presented in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (4th ed., text rev.; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) lack sufficient psychometric…

Two studies are reported which investigate delayed video self-recognition (DSR) in children with autistic disorder and Asperger's disorder relative to one another and to their typically developing peers. A secondary aim was to establish whether DSR ability is dependent on metarepresentational ability. Children's verbal and affective responses to…

Student motivation is a critical issue within all educational fields, including physical education. In regard to physical education, the term motivation is commonly defined as the "ability to energize behavior." Energizing behavior is imperative as student participation and engagement is deemed a critical component to the overall learning and…