In this article, teacher education reforms in Germany were analysed from a Japanese outsider's viewpoint. To describe the feature of "Germany" is never easy because of its diversity; however, from an outsider's viewpoint, certain unified features can be made clear. The symbol of today's reform is the teacher education standards from…

This paper briefly discusses four measurement challenges of data science or "big data" in educational assessments that are enabled by technology: 1. Dealing with change over time via time-based data. 2. How a digital performance space's relationships interact with learner actions, communications and products. 3. How layers of…

This document is from a presentation at the 2015 annual conference of the Science Teachers Association of Texas (STAT). The two sessions (each listed as feature sessions at the state conference) examined classroom strategies the presenter used in his chemistry classes to maximize Texas end-of-course chemistry test scores for his special population…

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) field tests during the spring of 2014 provided an opportunity to investigate the quality of the items, tasks, and associated stimuli. HumRRO conducted several research studies summarized in this report. Quality of test items is integral to the "Theory of Action"…

The Houston Independent School District offers two different English as a Second Language (ESL) programs for students whose native language is not English and who need to develop and enhance their English language skills (English Language Learners, or ELLs). The Content-Based ESL model (CB-ESL) consists of an intensive program of English…

In this study, the link between mathematics achievement, curriculum, teaching methods and resources used in the classrooms is investigated at an international level, allowing for country-specific factors potentially affecting educational achievement. More specifically, the aim of this research was twofold: on the one hand to investigate the…

This article details the authors' success in using youth as a construct to facilitate literary analysis skills among high school students who claimed not to like reading--and who demonstrated difficulty with reading comprehension. The authors provide descriptions of the analysis activities in which the students participated.

This paper explores the relationship among ICT infrastructure (i.e., computing devices and Internet), one-to-one computing program and student ICT activities in school. It also looks into the differences of how ICT is being used in the teaching of English, mathematics and science at the elementary school level in relation to the availability of…

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural…

Charter schools are a relatively new phenomenon in American education. Since the first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1991, they have expanded to 42 states and represent 6.2% of all public schools in the country. This growth has been attributed to a number of factors, chief among them evidence that charter schools can improve performance…

Subject-specific self-efficacy is a measure of confidence in one's own ability to complete tasks related to that subject. This confidence does not necessarily reflect actual ability in the subject and can be an over- or underestimate of true ability. We use nationally representative samples of 15-year-old students from the US to measure the degree…

The present study examined the effectiveness of the oral history approach with respect to students' historical competence. A total of 35 ninth-grade classes (N = 900) in Germany were randomly assigned to one of four conditions--live, video, text, or a (nontreated) control group--in a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design. Comparing the three…

With the strengthening of the global economy, contemporary societies have come to view the educational achievements of their young people as a major component of national competiveness. But there are substantial variations in the strategies employed by different nations. To maximize educational achievements, some nations believe that the provision…

This small-scale action research study examines the students' ability in using their mathematical skills when performing order of operations in numerical expressions. In this study, the "hierarchy-of-operators triangle" by Ameis (2011) was introduced as an alternative BODMAS approach to help students in gaining a better understanding…

Given the abundance of literature describing the strong relationship between inquiry-based teaching and student achievement, more should be known about the factors impacting science teachers' classroom inquiry implementation. This study utilises the theory of planned behaviour to propose and validate a causal model of inquiry-based teaching…