The way quality of assessment has been perceived and assured has changed considerably in the recent 5 decades. Originally, assessment was mainly seen as a measurement problem with the aim to tell people apart, the competent from the not competent. Logically, reproducibility or reliability and construct validity were seen as necessary and…

Research-practice-partnerships (RPPs) have arisen as a potentially powerful mechanism for school improvement; however, there is little work how to evaluate RPPs. This study investigates how four RPPs are addressing impact by (a) document analysis of metrics (N = 123) being used to assess partnerships, and (b) interviews exploring how network leads…

Background: Phelan-McDermid Syndrome (PHMDS)/22q13.3 deletion syndrome is a rare genetic disorder linked to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Intellectual Disability (ID). There are reports of PHMDS co-occurring with psychiatric disorders, but little is known about the assessment of such disorders in PHMDS. Method: A case study focusing on a…

Treatment fidelity assessment is critical to evaluating the extent to which interventions, such as the Good Behavior Game, are implemented as intended and impact student outcomes. The assessment methods by which treatment fidelity data are collected vary, with direct observation being the most popular and widely recommended. The current study…

Exciting developments in the field of Green Chemistry spur the continuous innovation of experiments in the teaching laboratory. Beyond learning practical techniques, students can critically assess experiments using relevant metrics to propose further improvements and identify the most important interconnected impacts of these alternative products…

In this study, researchers compared the concordance of teacher-level effectiveness ratings derived via six common generalized value-added model (VAM) approaches including a (1) student growth percentile (SGP) model, (2) value-added linear regression model (VALRM), (3) value-added hierarchical linear model (VAHLM), (4) simple difference (gain)…

It is well-recognized that measurement options for diagnosing and monitoring children with neurogenetic syndromes (NGS) associated with moderate to severe intellectual impairment are limited (Berry-Kravis, Dev Med Child Neurol 10.1111/dmcn.13018, 2016), and caregivers experience significant concerns regarding the assessment process. However to…

Purpose: Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is an acoustic measure that is sensitive to functional voice differences in adults. The aim of the current study was to evaluate RFF in children, as there are known structural and functional differences between the pediatric and adult vocal mechanisms. Method: RFF was analyzed in 28 children with vocal…

While exam-style questions are a fundamental educational tool serving a variety of purposes, manual construction of questions is a complex process that requires training, experience, and resources. This, in turn, hinders and slows down the use of educational activities (e.g. providing practice questions) and new advances (e.g. adaptive testing)…

Integrating computational thinking (CT) and science education is complex, and assessing the resulting learning gains even more so. Arguments that assessment should match the learning (Biggs, "Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education," 21(1), 5-16. 1996; Airasian and Miranda, "Theory into Practice," 41(4), 249-254. 2002;…

Course evaluations can be used for curriculum improvement and have the potential to better the student learning experience. However, because most are based on Likert scales and open-ended feedback, understanding diversity in student opinion and uncovering optimal options for course change and improvement are often difficult. Alternatively,…

Dynamic assessment (DA) is appealing to educational psychologists (EPs) due to: its flexibility, allowing EPs to adjust materials and processes to fit the assessment context; its usefulness, revealing ideas about how the next steps for learning might be achieved; and its focus on strengths. In Feuerstein's words, "it is the instances of…

In the Spring of 2020, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) physics faculty used the rapid response and change of teaching modality to the pandemic to holistically re-imagine the course assessments. They developed and implemented a course architecture that focused on more smaller-stakes assessments to better engage students with the…

In social and behavioral sciences, data are typically not normally distributed, which can invalidate hypothesis testing and lead to unreliable results when being analyzed by methods developed for normal data. The existing methods of generating multivariate non-normal data typically create data according to specific univariate marginal measures…

A growing number of US cities are organizing common application systems for families seeking free public preschool for their children, and many use the deferred acceptance (DA) algorithm to assign students to schools that receive more applications than they have seats. In this report, we examine the steps taken to use a common application system…