To ensure equal access to high quality education, the global expansion of universal basic education has included accountability measures in the form of academic tests. Presently the majority of countries participate in national testing; however, the past two decades have seen a substantial shift in test characteristics and aims. This article…

Over the last two decades, educational theory has begun to incorporate analyses of space where formerly temporal considerations dominated. In this article, Marxist educational theory is spatialized by considering the school as (1) a form of fixed capital, (2) a crucial aspect of the built environment and (3) a relational space. The author begins…

This article begins by defining "world Englishes" (WEs) and the related paradigm of inner-, outer-, and expanding-circle English(es). The discussion then turns to the central concerns of the WEs and language testing (LT) communities with regard to how English tests can best be constructed to include various WEs by discussing (a) what…

What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian…

Identifying sources of variation has been used extensively in educational research as a tool to identify potential drives of variances in student achievement. However, prior research predominantly relied on findings from national- or international-level data, and thus their conclusions remain very broad-based. This study contributes new insight by…

With the increased use of standardised mathematics assessments at the classroom level, teachers are encouraged, and sometimes required, to use data from these assessments to inform their practice. As a consequence, teacher educators and researchers are starting to focus on the development of analytical tools that will help them determine how…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between reading comprehension and morphological awareness skills. Researchers have documented a wide range of skills that influence reading comprehension ability at different times to different degrees. One of the skills identified as having an influence on reading comprehension ability…

Child development for a cohort of urban Aboriginal children was assessed at three time points: 12 months, 3 years and 4.5 years. This paper reports developmental findings and explores the impact of child, family, home and community variables over time. Overall, child development at 4.5 years was significantly below the standardised mean. Female…

Blended learning opportunities are expanding for K-12 students in public school settings. As these opportunities increase, researchers and educators seek to discover specific characteristics of the students who are most successful in blended learning environments. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between students'…

Florida implemented the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), a statewide assessment of students' academic content, in 1996. Subsequently, in 2001, the State Board of Education established passing scores on the FCAT to determine eligibility for a standard high school diploma. As of the 2015-2016 academic year, Florida requires students to…

Early number skills, comprised of both informal and formal skills, are associated with later mathematics achievement. Thus, the development of foundational early number skills is an important aspect of early mathematics instruction. This study explored relations between early number skills gains and mathematics achievement for students at risk for…

This study compared 70 English learners (ELs) and English-only (EO) second-grade students' writing samples before and after a yearlong writing program. The school utilized Write From the Beginning (J. Buckner, 2006) and focused on personal narratives. A subgroup of students also participated in an intervention supporting expository writing on…

Background: Dynamic testing has been proposed as a testing approach that is less disadvantageous for children who may be potentially subject to bias when undertaking conventional assessments. For example, those who encounter high levels of test anxiety, or who are unfamiliar with standardized test procedures, may fail to demonstrate their true…

Underachievement among gifted students is a paradox that frustrates educators because of the significant disparity between students' potential and their performance. Complicating the issue is the highly individualized nature of the underperformance, which must take into consideration factors of student culture, socio-economic status, motivation,…

In a sociohistorical moment during which racism has become more widely accepted as a social fact, U.S. scholars and practitioners of education continue to struggle with how schooling might participate in its eradication. In suburban, elite, Midwestern Pioneer City Public Schools, a series of initiatives I refer to as "the transformation"…