In response to an argument by Baird, Andrich, Hopfenbeck and Stobart (2017), Michael Kane states that there needs to be a better fit between educational assessment and learning theory. In line with this goal, Kane will examine how psychometric constraints might be loosened by relaxing some psychometric "rules" in some assessment…

Design-based case studies address research questions that involve instructional innovations within a bounded system. This blend of case study and design-based research provides a systematic approach to examining instructional innovations that are bounded by perspective, context, and time. Design-based case studies provide a framework for engaging…

Although peer nomination measures have been used by researchers for nearly a century, common methodological practices and rules of thumb (e.g., which variables to measure; use of limited vs. unlimited nomination methods) have continued to develop in recent decades. At the same time, other key aspects of the basic nomination procedure (e.g.,…

There are two primary means to prevent the abuse of collegiality and transform it into a shield to protect the most vulnerable. First, colleges and universities should follow the examples of their peers by developing clear definitions of what types of behavior constitute collegiality and what types of activity are protected as academic freedom or…

Automated scoring systems are typically evaluated by comparing the performance of a single automated rater item-by-item to human raters. This presents a challenge when the performance of multiple raters needs to be compared across multiple items. Rankings could depend on specifics of the ranking procedure; observed differences could be due to…

There is an increasing demand for assessments that can provide more fine-grained information about examinees. In response to the demand, diagnostic measurement provides students with feedback on their strengths and weaknesses on specific skills by classifying them into mastery or nonmastery attribute categories. These attributes often form a…

Despite the expansion of early intervention approaches for young children with ASD, investigators have struggled to identify measures capable of assessing social communication change in response to these interventions. Addressing recent calls for efficient, sensitive, and reliable social communication measures, the current paper outlines the…

In this article I provide an overview of the methodological issues involved in measuring constructs relevant to character development and education. I begin with a nontechnical overview of the 3 fundamental psychometric properties of measurement: reliability, validity, and equivalence. Developing and evaluating measures to ensure evidence of all 3…

Bangladesh, home to one of the world's largest and most diverse education sectors, has witnessed rapid growth in its private education sector in recent decades. The majority of this growth has been within the low-fee private school (LFPS) sector, which now accounts for more than 25 percent of total school enrollment. However, the reliability of…

This paper examines the development and validation of the Survey of Climate for Instructional Improvement (SCII). SCII has 30-item Likert-scale items with 1 open response question and is designed to measure five aspects of organizational climate in postsecondary settings. The goal of this paper is to describe: (a) our development process, (b)…

This report considers the use of a focus group as a data collection tool in early childhood research. The report outlines one researcher's experience, analyzing the difficulties of gaining meaningful data during focused group discussions, considering in some depth the impacts of careful management on the validity of the findings, providing…

This study classifies the verbal feedback of science teachers into praise statements, effort-based feedback statements, negative feedback statements, and ability-based statements, which are also regarded as feedback strategies. The study aims to investigate the feedback strategies used by science teachers in the classroom setting using descriptive…

Progressing through schools may be challenging for some students, especially those with learning disabilities (LD). In social studies, for example, students grapple with increasingly complex texts, independent work, direct instruction, critical thinking, analysis, and other learning demands. As students transition from elementary schools where…

Technology has influenced every aspect of our living, and education is not an exception. During the current pandemic period of COVID-19, the latent motive of maintaining social distancing is leading to be one of the prime reasons for the students to get enrolled in online courses. Although the benefits of e-learning have been discussed in various…

Character strengths are an important foundation for positive development and thriving in adolescence. Most research on character strengths has been conducted with youths in Western cultures. We examined character strengths in relation to positive and negative well-being indicators in a sample of Iranian youths. We investigated the reliability and…