This study reviewed prominent journals within the field of emotional and behavioral disorders to identify direct observation approaches, reported reliability statistics, and key features of direct observation. Selected journals were systematically reviewed for the past 10 years identifying and quantifying specific direct observation systems and…

State and local education agencies across the United States are increasingly adopting rigorous teacher evaluation systems. Most systems formally incorporate teacher performance as measured by student test-score growth, sometimes by state mandate. An important consideration that will influence the long-term persistence and efficacy of these systems…

Although it is widely accepted that procedural fidelity data are important for making valid decisions about intervention effectiveness, there is little empirical guidance for researchers and practitioners regarding how to assess procedural fidelity. A first step in moving procedural fidelity assessment research forward is to develop a…

The article explores the concept of wicked problems and proposes a reinvigorated application of this concept for wider educational use. This recommendation stems from the contributions of a number of scholars who frame some of the most contentious and recalcitrant educational issues as wicked problems. The present authors build upon these previous…

Keith Marcus congratulates Almond et al. on an interesting article bringing together two topics that are important to the field of testing. He states that some aspects of the exposition came across as not yet fully developed, as if the manuscript had been hurried to press. In this commentary, he attempts to expand aspects of the article, which he…

Contemporary dance in East Africa, specifically Kenya, is a newly emerging art form informed by the political drive of a small number of choreographers. In this article, I discuss Kenyan choreographer Opiyo Okach's contribution to dance training as exemplified through the "Shift … centre Series 10" which was performed at The Place,…

Evaluators widely agree that stakeholder involvement is a central aspect of effective program evaluation. With the exception of articles on collaborative evaluation approaches, however, a systematic review of the breadth and depth of the literature on stakeholder involvement has not been published. In this study, we examine peer-reviewed empirical…

Responsive evaluation builds upon the methods of informal evaluation in disciplined ways: getting personally acquainted with the evaluand, observation of activities, interviewing people who are in different ways familiar with the evaluand, searching documents that reveal what happened in the past or somewhere else. It calls for sustained effort to…

This study examined organizational change in science museums toward practices that are inclusive of people with disabilities. Guided by two overarching frameworks, organizational learning and the social model of disability, this study sought to answer the following: What are the contexts and processes that facilitate, sustain, or impede a science…

This qualitative study explores how a group of preservice teachers, all of whom had been well prepared to become primary-grade teachers, made a transition into infant/toddler group care settings. The authors used the teachers' daily journal entries, individual interview, document analysis (course syllabus, weekly planning sheets), and weekly team…

Math in Common® (MiC) is a five-year initiative that supports a formal network of 10 California school districts as they implement the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M) across grades K-8. This research brief explores how best to select or develop and use classroom observation systems in order to document instructional shifts and…

This paper presents a case study of a yearlong research-based peace education program at one urban K-8 private Catholic school situated in a community plagued by structural violence in an enclave of a large Midwestern city. To frame the analysis, the author employs concepts central to culturally responsive pedagogy (including cultural competence,…

Since the establishment of Acting Studies, movement has always been a part of actor training. In the current vocational training institutions in the UK, movement for actors covers a wide range of subjects, including dance, somatics and movement practices. The aim of this research was to collect information about the dance techniques considered…

The present study investigated the concurrent validity of the Classroom Strategies Scale-Teacher Form (CSS-T), a multidimensional teacher formative assessment of instructional and behavioral management practices. The CSS-T is compared with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), a well-known teacher assessment of overall classroom…

Reading has been identified as one of the most reliable indicators of whether a learner will attain the competence needed to achieve academic success and contribute actively to society. Research findings in Kenyan primary and secondary schools reveal inadequate reading skills among the students. The purpose of this study was to identify approaches…