There are more than three dozen systemic community schools initiatives currently underway nationwide, with even more communities considering the reform. Yet few tools exist to help school districts, government agencies, and communities at large track their progress. To address this gap, Research for Action (RFA), with generous funding from the…

Preschool and kindergarten teachers can assess and monitor their students' letter name knowledge in less than a minute per student using the freely available Quick Letter Name Knowledge assessment. The purpose of this article is to introduce the Quick Letter Name Knowledge assessment to early childhood educational practitioners. [This article was…

The Results of the Benchmarking Survey of 2017 from the responding principals and superintendents. The chapters cover: (1) Demographics: Whom Do We Serve; (2) Policies, Procedures and Protocols; (3) Provision of Services; Challenges and Opportunities; and (4) Next Steps. [This report was written with Ann Kearns Davoren.]

The article focuses on the analysis of curriculum documents from Taiwan to investigate how benchmarks for learning nature of science (NOS) are positioned in different versions of the science curricula. Following a review of different approaches to the conceptualization of NOS and the role of NOS in promoting scientific literacy, an empirical study…

This study examined expectations for reading proficiency in the context of Common Core State Standards assessments and how DIBELS Next can inform decisions about student skills relative to these expectations. Data for cohorts of students in grades 3-5 were analyzed to determine the concurrent and predictive validity of the DIBELS Next Composite…

Despite growing utilization of scholarly metrics to assess faculty research output, quality, impact, and productivity, the marketing discipline has yet to develop a comprehensive, generalizable benchmark for assessing scholar productivity. This study builds on and extends previous productivity benchmark studies by examining a considerably larger…

The purpose of the research was to replicate commonality analysis for two measures: critical content monitoring and sentence verification technique. Participants were 967 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students across seven public primary schools in a southeastern U.S. district. The predictor variables were administered as benchmarks 3 times in…

This paper describes and evaluates a multistage adaptive testing (MSAT) design that was implemented for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 main survey for the major domain of Reading. Through a simulation study, recovery of item response theory model parameters and measurement precision were examined. The PISA 2018 MSAT…

Effect sizes in the Cohen's d family are often used in education to compare estimates across studies, measures, and sample sizes. For example, effect sizes are used to compare gains in achievement students make over time, either in pre- and post-treatment studies or in the absence of intervention, such as when estimating achievement gaps. However,…

Health literacy supports individuals', families', and communities' health-care decisions. As mediators between health information seekers and medical literature, librarians are essential purveyors of health literacy. Users' trust in libraries as sources of reliable and current health information presupposes the appropriate training of librarians;…

This study uses the concept of gamification to engage first-year students in the act of summary writing. The researcher argues that writing instructors should consider ways to gamify concepts in their curriculum to bring novelty and active involvement to course materials. The researcher uses Robson et al.'s (2015) mechanics, dynamics, and emotions…

Although national legislation and policy call for the use of student assessment data to support instruction, evidence suggests that teachers lack the knowledge and skills required to effectively use data. Previous studies have demonstrated the potential of training for increasing immediate teacher outcomes (i.e., knowledge, skills, and beliefs),…

Ensuring that students are ready for college when they graduate from high school has important implications for students, educators, education policymakers, and other stakeholders. This study focuses on an examination of the relationship between the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) grade 12 mathematics assessment and college…

The primary objective of this study was to describe cognitive and pre-academic skills of children born preterm (< 30 weeks gestational age) at preschool age. A secondary objective was to relate cognitive functioning at preschool age to developmental scores obtained using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-Third Edition (Bayley…

Background: Reading development in agglutinating African languages is a relatively underresearched area. While numerous studies highlight the low comprehension levels among learners reading in African languages in South Africa, little has been done to probe beneath this 'comprehension iceberg' in terms of decoding skills. Aim: As a tentative step…