This study aimed at investigating the effect of electronic dialogue journaling on Jordanian upper basic stage EFL students' writing performance. The study utilized a pretest-posttest control group experimental design. The subjects of the study consisted of fifty students enrolled in the Islamic Educational School during the first semester of the…

The authors describe research on the extent to which mathematics classroom activities in Maryland were aligned with Maryland learning outcomes and the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP; Maryland State Department of Education, 1995, 2000). The study was part of a larger research project (S. Lane, C. S. Parke, & C. A. Stone,…

Behavioral aspects of self-regulation, including controlling and directing actions, paying attention, and remembering instructions, are critical for successful functioning in preschool and elementary school. In recent years, several direct assessments of these skills have appeared, but few studies provide complete psychometric data and many are…

This article argues that whilst there have been substantial advancements in the ways in which learning is conceptualised, theoretical understandings of assessment, and practices that contribute to meaningful statements of learners' achievements, have not mirrored these changes in certain learning contexts. The authors challenge contemporary…

The use of microworlds (MWs), or complex dynamic systems, in educational testing and personnel selection is hampered by systematic measurement errors because these new and innovative item formats are not adequately controlled for their difficulty. This empirical study introduces a way to operationalize an MW's difficulty and demonstrates the…

This report focuses on the performance of fourth-and eighth-grade students in Puerto Rico in various mathematics content areas on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics. The NAEP mathematics assessment was administered to public school students in Puerto Rico for the first time in 2003. Although NAEP had…

This paper investigates the effects that different patterns of similarity among group members have on a group's performance on a problem-solving task. I discuss and test hypotheses on the effects of similarity on group performance derived from two literatures: balance theory and research on homophily. In an experiment I found that the relative…

In recent years, there has been a movement in the USA towards performance-based evaluation of teachers. As a result, many schools, colleges, and departments of education have moved towards integrating performance-based approaches into their programs. This has involved many promising practices, but none have caught on more than the use of teaching…

This study introduces a portable direct assessment of young children's self-regulation--the Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA). The PSRA was designed to assess self-regulation in emotional, attentional, and behavioral domains by using a brief, structured battery of tasks in conjunction with a global report of children's behavior. Factor…

The authors examine how a public school culture that has resisted a number of promising reform initiatives could be transformed by a Millennium School model based on four basic principles: a multi-tiered career path for teachers; teaching in teams; performance-based accountability; and ongoing professional development.

Standardized tests are increasingly used to determine students' growth in reading comprehension. In some U.S. school districts, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has led to a focus on multiple-choice questions to better prepare students for these types of tests. Even though such questions can provide some important information, they do not…

The authors examined the accuracy of information elicited from seventy-nine 5- to 7-year-old children about a staged event that included physical contact-touching. Four to six weeks later, children's recall for the event was assessed using an interview protocol analogous to those used in forensic investigations with children. Following the…

This paper describes the redesign of the goals and objectives of a secondary teacher education program employing authentic assessment. A sophomore level field experience course was identified to run a pilot study of an assessment process that employed video portfolios for evaluation of students' teaching behaviors. The videotapes set the basis…

The Center for Gifted and Talented Native Hawaiian Children has been developing identification methods congruent with Hawaiian values and traditional talent areas and has increased the number of native Hawaiian students identified and provided with enrichment services. This report describes efforts to combine self-report data and performance-based…

The following study interprets the results of a research carried out in 2008 in Romania, on a smaller sample. The aim of the study is the analysis of the text comprehension skills of 14 year old pupils, and the presentation of the connections with the social background, learning styles and school performance. The gathering of the data was…