This study examined the relationship between the executive control process of inhibition and self-reported dispositional mindfulness, controlling for gender, grade, and cortisol levels in 99 (43% female) fourth- and fifth-graders ([X-bar] = 10.23 years, SD = 0.53). Students completed a measure of mindful attention awareness and a computerized…

Through its signature initiative, Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP), the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is promoting a vision for learning that begins in school: Starting in School . . . Rigorous and rich curriculum focused on the essential learning outcomes; comprehensive, individualized, and…

Background: Systems of care is a family centered, strengths-based service delivery model for treating youth experiencing a serious emotional disturbance. Wraparound is the most common method of service delivery adopted by states and communities as a way to adhere to systems of care philosophy. Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate…

One of the primary challenges in developing effective accountability systems is determining how best to include students with disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to report on the initial implementation of one option for including students with disabilities into the accountability system in the United States. In 2007, federal guidance…

Recent studies have shown that children with mathematics difficulties (MD) have weaknesses in multiple areas of mathematics. Andersson, for example, recently found that children with MD perform significantly worse than other children on clock reading tasks. The present study builds on this recent finding and aims at a more profound understanding…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the impact of educational technology courses on pre-service teachers' development of knowledge of technology integration in a teacher preparation program in the USA. The present study was conducted with eight pre-service teachers enrolled in the elementary teacher education program at a large…

This study investigated how early experience with racial discrimination affected the subsequent risky sexual behaviors of a diverse sample of African American youths (N = 745). The analyses focused on 3 risk-promoting factors thought to mediate the hypothesized discrimination--risky sex relation: negative affect, affiliation with deviant peers,…

This article reports on the findings of 25 associate teacher surveys and six associate teacher interviews collected between June 2008 and February 2009. The survey invited associate teachers to report on the preparedness of student teachers, including their strengths, weaknesses, and how well prepared they were for the realities of becoming a…

The idea that validity should be considered a property of inferences, rather than of assessments, has developed slowly over the past century. In early writings about the validity of educational assessments, validity was defined as a property of an assessment. The most common definition was that an assessment was valid to the extent that it…

What is the best use for tests? Testing should provide insight and information to educators and students. The primary purpose of testing is to inform teaching and learning. Yet, for too many schools, testing has been perverted to accommodate only measurement. Lesson plans are built around helping students pass the tests. In many instances, schools…

In meeting the inclusion provisions for English language learners (ELLs) in state assessment systems, it is important to assure the meaningful representation of what students know and can do. States have relied on accommodations as one of the principle means to increase the validity of ELL test scores. Yet current knowledge about effective…

The present highly developed status of psychological and educational testing in the United States is in part the result of many efforts over the past 100 years to develop economical and reliable methods of scoring. The present article traces a number of methods, ranging from hand scoring to present-day computer applications, stimulated by the need…

We examined how much agreement there was between scores from large-scale mandated assessments and report-card grades for 14,776 students in grades 3, 6, and 9 of a district in which conditions were conducive to alignment of assessments. We found significant mean differences between internal and external assessments: effect sizes were 0.29 to 0.63…

The author investigated the impact of assessment methods on student performance on accounting tests. Specifically, the author used analysis of variance to determine whether the use of computer-based tests instead of paper-based tests affects students' traditional test scores in accounting examinations. The author included 2 independent variables,…

The Guam Department of Education (GDOE) presents this report in compliance with Guam Public Law 26-26 that specifically requires the Department to report on the following information in the Annual State of Public Education Report (ASPER): (1) Demographic information on public school children in the community; (2) Information pertaining to student…