The study involves "Teaming", a topic that is receiving attention in education today. Teaming is a school improvement initiative strategy used at many grade levels in many schools across the country. This plan of action brings core teachers, in such contents as Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies and connects them…

We confronted 151, 5th and 6th elementary grade pupils with a quantitative problem in a mathematics or religion class, to examine the influence of the context on pupils' understanding and solution of such problems inside and outside the mathematics class. Pupils were first asked to solve a problem about fair sharing either during a mathematics or…

This study examines the effects of two test administration accommodations on the mathematics performance of students within the context of a large-scale statewide assessment. The two test administration accommodations were resource guides and calculators. A stratified random sample of schools was selected to represent the demographic…

Setting international benchmarks for education systems of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is one of the goals of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, some countries are not able to participate in PISA, despite their desire to set international benchmarks for their…

Using data from the international Teacher Education and Development Study: Learning to Teach Mathematics (TEDS-M), the measurement equivalence of teachers' beliefs across countries is investigated for the case of "mathematics-as-a fixed-ability". Measurement equivalence is a crucial topic in all international large-scale assessments and…

Fingertip Facts is a compendium of some of the most frequently requested data sets from the Utah State Office of Education. Data sets in this year's Fingertip Facts include: Core CRT Language Arts Testing, 2013; Core CRT Mathematics Testing, 2013; 2013 Public Education General Fund; 2012-13 Enrollment Demographics; Public Schools by Grade Level,…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between professional learning community (PLC) characteristics and levels of trust, and their impact on student academic achievement in fifth and eighth grade mathematics, based on Georgia's state academic test. This research was designed to answer the following questions: is student…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions and beliefs of teachers at a Midwestern suburban middle school about students, student learning, and about teacher's beliefs of their collective abilities to achieve the task of school improvement. Saddleback Middle School (SMS) has experienced low standardized test scores since the…

This study examined differences between two groups of students' spatial-scientific reasoning from pre to post implementation of an Earth/Space unit. Using a quasi-experimental design, researchers explored how instructional method and gender affected learning. Treatment teachers employed an integrated STEM curriculum while the control teacher…

Recent studies have shown that children with mathematics difficulties (MD) have weaknesses in multiple areas of mathematics. Andersson, for example, recently found that children with MD perform significantly worse than other children on clock reading tasks. The present study builds on this recent finding and aims at a more profound understanding…

This dissertation research examined the changes in item RIT calibration that occurred when adding audio to a set of currently calibrated RIT items and then placing these new items as field test items in the modified assessments on the NWEA MAP test platform. The researcher used test results from over 600 students in the Poway School District in…

In alignment studies, expert raters evaluate assessment items against standards and ratings are used to compute various alignment indices. Questions about rater reliability, however, are often ignored or inadequately addressed. This paper reports the results of a generalizability theory study of cognitive demand and rigor ratings of assessment…

The motivation for this paper is to increase individuals' understanding of the way in which inequality in educational outcomes and in the relation between measures of backgrounds is related to levels and dispersion of educational performance of young persons. The article thus sheds light on the international variation in the importance of…

From adolescence, data show that males outperform females on math tests and tests of math reasoning. These tests are usually age appropriate (i.e., SAT-M and the ACT). The current data with college students and a simple test of arithmetic ability show that males still score higher than females (N = 235) even when performance is measured using a…

The concurrent and predictive validities of the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) and Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM) were investigated in a large group of Italian third-and fifth-grade students with different sociocultural levels evaluated at the beginning and end of the school year. CPM and NNAT scores were related to math and…