Standardized Tests

In this research, an analysis of policies and implementation processes of testing high school students in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico is presented. The objective is aimed at understanding how these practices guide or outline the dynamics of schools, teachers and priorities of student work. The information was collected through interviews, focus groups and observation records. The results indicate that the approach that has made the assessment reinforces a school culture that favors the numerical results over the educational processes, competitiveness and individual success is exalted above solidarity and empathy. The evaluation approach embodied in the curriculum and assessment practices in classrooms is contradicted.

This article describes an extended program of research in sheltered instruction and the effects on the academic literacy development of English language learners. It also highlights the challenges of scaling up an instructional intervention. The intervention was the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model, an approach that teaches subject area curriculum to students learning through a second language using techniques that make the content material accessible and also help develop the students' second language skills. Three successive studies looked at teacher change over time and student achievement on standardized assessments and researcher-developed measures. Results of the three studies reveal that students with teachers who were trained in the SIOP Model of sheltered instruction and implemented it with fidelity performed significantly better on assessments of academic language and literacy than students with teachers who were not trained in the model. The article offers guidance for strengthening professional development for teachers so the quality of instruction they deliver to English language learners improves and the students strengthen their English language and academic outcomes.

The use of ability grouping is frequently justified on the grounds that it is an effective means of raising attainment. Little large-scale quantitative research has been undertaken since the introduction of the National Curriculum in England and Wales. The aim of this article is to examine the effects of setting on students' achievement in English, mathematics and science General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations. Data were collected from a cohort of over 6000 Year 9 students in 45 mixed secondary comprehensive schools who were followed up in Year 11 when they sat GCSE examinations. Multilevel modelling was used to estimate the effect of setting on GCSE attainment, taking account of prior attainment, social disadvantage, gender and attendance. There were no significant effects of setting in English, mathematics or science. Effects on higher and lower attaining students were not consistent in the three subjects. Socially disadvantaged students achieved significantly lower grades and girls achieved higher grades than boys, especially in English. In all three subjects, students of similar ability achieved higher GCSE grades when they were placed in higher sets. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

For more than half a century concerns about the ability of American students to compete in a global workplace focused policymakers' attention on improving school performance generally, and student achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) specifically. In its most recent form-No Child Left Behind-there is evidence this focus led to a repurposing of instructional time to dedicate more attention to tested subjects. While this meant a narrowing of the curriculum to focus on English and mathematics at the elementary level, the effects on high school curricula have been less clear and generally absent from the research literature. In this study, we sought to explore the relationship between school improvement efforts and student achievement in science and thus explore the intersection of school reform and STEM policies. We used school-level data on state standardized test scores in English and math to identify schools as either improving or declining over three consecutive years. We then compared the science achievement of students from these schools as measured by the ACT Science exams. Our findings from three consecutive cohorts, including thousands of high school students who attended 12th grade in 2008, 2009, and 2010 indicate that students attending improving schools identified by state administered standardized tests generally performed no better on a widely administered college entrance exam with tests in science, math and English. In 2010, students from schools identified as improving in English scored nearly one-half of a point lower than their peers from declining schools on both the ACT Science and Math exams. We discuss various interpretations and implications of these results and suggest areas for future research.

The aim of this study was to examine the association of breastfeeding practices with the growth trajectories of children's cognitive development. We used data from the Child Development Supplement (CDS) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) with variables on presence and duration of breastfeeding and standardized test scores obtained during three different panel waves (N = 2681). After adjusting for covariates we found that breastfed children had higher test scores but that breastfed and non-breastfed children had similar growth trajectories in test scores over time. The results indicate that breastfeeding has an important association with test scores, and that subsequent schooling and other experiences during adolescence do not eliminate the breastfeeding gap that appears in very early childhood.

avid is eight years old and has an I.Q. of 145 on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). He is capable of grasping anything of interest to him and has lately been "begging" his parents to get geometry books for him. Just a s David's parents wonder whether or not he is ready for geometry-or even beginning algebra-the regular classroom teacher may be uncertain of how to design an appropriate mathe-The authors wish to thank Drs.

Introduction Schools are social institutions that mirror the larger society. In the United States (U.S.), a compulsory public school system was developed to address the needs of industry, speaking to the direct effect society has on the creation and purpose of schooling. "Far from creating independent thinkers, schools have always, throughout history, played an institutional role in a system of control and coercion" (Macedo in Chomsky, 2000, p 3). The general purpose of public schools has not changed since its inception-students continue to be educated to accept ideologies that serve the needs of the dominant class. Yet, the purpose of schooling has been contested throughout the history of the U.S. by both dominant groups and the oppressed. This article will explore the sociopolitical context of education policy, particularly as it relates to Latina/o education. We will highlight the status of Latina/os within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to examine the impact of educa...

Drawing from work by Shadish, Cook, and Leviton (1991) on social program evaluation, the authors discuss recent changes in evaluation theory and practices, and they connect these changes to technology and student learning. Concluding with a list of recommendations for evaluating the effectiveness of technology in teaching and learning, the authors challenge the purposes of education and prevalent goals for evaluation. After questioning how technology can impact student learning, they call for new and expanded definitions of student learning outcomes. Recommendations include redefining technology as a process rather than as a product, conducting implementation evaluations prior to outcome evaluations; reducing the reliance on standardized test scores as the primary outcome measure; and adopting multifaceted evaluation approaches (including case studies).

A general theory of domain identification is used to describe achievement barriers still faced by women in advanced quantitative areas and by African Americans in school. The theory assumes that sustained school success requires identification with school and its subdomains; that societal pressures on these groups (e.g., economic disadvantage, gender roles) can frustrate this identification; and that in school domains where these groups are negatively stereotyped, those who have become domain identified face the further barrier of stereotype threat, the threat that others' judgments or their own actions will negatively stereotype them in the domain. Research shows that this threat dramatically depresses the standardized test performance of women and African Americans who are in the academic vanguard of their groups (offering a new interpretation of group differences in standardized test performance), that it causes disidentification with school, and that practices that reduce this threat can reduce these negative effects.

The increasing prominence of standardized achievement tests in educational policy and practice motivated the current investigation. We propose a model in which report card grades differentially assess certain competencies (e.g., completion of homework and longterm assignments and positive classroom behavior) determined more by self-control than by intelligence, whereas standardized achievement tests are more sensitive to other competencies (e.g., capacity to solve novel problems in unfamiliar formats; independent acquisition of skills and knowledge outside of school) determined more by intelligence than by self-control. In three longitudinal, prospective studies of middle school students, self-control was a stronger predictor of changes in report card grades than was IQ. In contrast, IQ was a stronger predictor than self-control of changes in standardized achievement test scores. In a fourth study, a survey of teachers' grading practices provided further support for the proposed model. Implications for pedagogy and public policy are discussed.

How studerts perceive standardized tests and routine classroom tests on subject matter units was studied by surveying 61 fifth-grade and 65 eighth-grade students in public schools in Michigan. It was hypothesized that older students would more often distinguish between the types of test and would be more cynical and less motivated than would younger students, and that high-achieving students would express more positive attitudes in both grades compared to lower achieving students. The standardized test was the California Achievement Test. A 56-item survey assessed student attitudes. Fifth-graders did not distinguish between the types of test as much as did eighth-graders. Younger students had more positive attitudes. The highly discriminated attitudes of the eighth-graders suggest developing disillusionment with standardized tests, a growing sense of their unimportance, and a suspicion of their validity. By grade 8, students did not incorporate standardized test results in their perceptions of their own ability. A 9-item list of references is included. Three tables present study data and survey

This study investigated the retention of meaningful understanding of the biological topics of meiosis, the Punnett square method and the relations between these two topics. This study also explored the predictive influence of students' general tendency to learn meaningfully or by rote (meaningful learning orientation), prior

Purpose There is a substantial minority of children for whom lexical retrieval problems impede the normal pattern of language development and use. These problems include accurately producing the correct word even when the word’s meaning is understood. Such problems are often referred to as word-finding difficulties ( WFDs ). This article examines the nature of naming and lexical retrieval difficulties in these and other groups of children. Method A review of the relevant literature on lexical access difficulties in children with word-finding difficulties was conducted. Studies were examined in the terms of population parameters and comparison groups included in the study. Results and Conclusions Most discussions of the cognitive processes causing lexical retrieval difficulties refer to semantics, phonology, and processing speed. The authors propose that understanding of these topics will be further advanced by the use of appropriate methodology to test developmental models. In this ...

An important criticism of high-stakes testing policies -policies that reward or sanction schools based on their students' performance on standardized tests -is that they provide schools with an incentive to focus on those subjects that play a role in the accountability system while decreasing attention to those subjects that are not part of the program. This paper utilizes a regression discontinuity design to evaluate the impact of Florida's high-stakes testing policy on student proficiency in the low-stakes subject of science. We confirm prior results that students in schools facing more immediate sanctions under the policy made substantial gains in the high-stakes subjects of math and reading. Contrary to the crowding-out hypothesis, we find that students in these schools made substantial achievement gains in the low-stakes subject of science as well.

Tort law offers an appropriate vehicle for handling the increased prevalence of standardized testing in the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act and the potential miss-scoring problems that arise with standardized tests. This incentivizes the use of reasonable care in scoring standardized tests and justly compensates for miss-scoring harms when doing so does not unduly burden testing agencies.  Neither contract law nor the existing Truth-in-Testing law adequately affords the sort of remedies and protections the issue of standardized testing and miss-scoring pose.

The ability for tort liability to adequately hold testing agencies accountable for miss-scoring errors and afford relief to test-takers will vary based on the actions or inactions of the testing agencies. The culpability of the testing agency and other considerations potentially give rise to actions for negligence and infliction of emotional distress, misrepresentation, defamation and false-light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with prospective advantage, or injurious falsehood—also known as disparagement. While some theories will rarely offer viable avenues for recovery, others, given particular facts, may provide a basis for relief.

Given the great, new weight placed on standardized tests in modern times, tort law posses the ability to best afford remedies to parties injured by miss-scorings on the part of testing agencies. However, relief should only be attained after a painstaking review of the facts of each case in light of principles of tort liability, seeking to incentivize the use of reasonable care in scoring standardized tests and compensating harm in meritorious cases.

In this paper we present new evidence on the impact of school characteristics on secondary student achievement using a rich data set from rural Bangladesh. We deal with a potentially important selectivity issue in the South Asian context: the non-random sorting of children into religious schools. We do so by employing a combination of fixed effects and instrumental variable estimation techniques. Additionally, we use the variation between two classrooms of the same grade within individual schools to identify causal class-size effects. Our empirical results do not reveal any difference in test scores between religious and secular schools when selection into religious school is taken into account. Net of school fixed-effects, we do not find evidence in support of smaller class size. However, we document significant learning deficit by gender and primary school type: girls and graduates of primary madrasas have a lower test score even after controlling for school and classroom-specific unobservable correlates of learning.

Standardized testing has assumed a prominent role in recent efforts to improve the quality of education. National, state, and district tests, combined with minimum competency, special program, and special diploma evaluations, have resulted in a greatly expanded set of testing requirements for most schools. At a cost of millions, even billions, of dollars and at the expense of valuable student, teacher, and administrator time, testing advocates and many policymakers still view testing as a significant, positive, and cost-effective tool in educational improvement. Testing advocates' support for testing as such a tool is based on a simple set of arguments. First, testing sets meaningful standards to which school districts, schools, teachers, and students can aspire. Second, test data can be used as feedback to shape classroom instruction. Third, 3 testing makes school systems, schools, and teachers more accountable for student learning. Finally, testing, coupled with incentives and...

Interlanguage pragmatics concerns the inspection of interactions among people in society while they are aware of the effects that interaction imposes on them regarding culture, social values and individuals' peculiar interpretations. Of high value in social interaction, politeness is an essential constituent of interlanguage pragmatics. If considered as a skill required to cope with social environmental demands, Emotional Intelligence (EI) may play a part in modifying the interlanguage pragmatics and hence individuals' politeness in response to social interaction. This study investigates how emotional intelligence of L1-Persian EFL learners relates to politeness strategies utilized in requests. To this end, 150 male and female undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students majored in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) were randomly selected. Instruments of the study included Emotional Intelligence Appraisal Test, Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Task (MDCT), and a politeness questionnaire based on Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness. The results of correlational and regression analyses indicated that EI cannot predict politeness , whereas educational level and pragmatic competence can predict the EFL learners' politeness appreciated in requests in different scenarios. Of interest, the higher the level of education, the more pragmatic ability and politeness thereof.

The validity of the SAT as an admissions criterion for Latinos and Asian Americans who are not native English speakers was examined. The analyses, based on 1997 and 1998 UCSB freshmen, focused on the effectiveness of SAT scores and high school grade-point average (HSGPA) in predicting college freshman grade-point average (FGPA). When regression equations were estimated based on all students combined, some systematic prediction errors occurred. For language minorities, using only high school grades as a predictor led to predicted FGPAs that tended to exceed actual FGPAs, particularly for Latinos. Including SAT scores in the equation notably reduced prediction bias. Further analyses showed that, while HSGPA had the highest correlation with FGPA for most groups, SAT verbal score was the strongest predictor of FGPA for language minorities in 1998. An overriding conclusion is that combining data across language groups can obscure important test validity information.

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To make sense of the complex information taught in the upper elementary grades--and to
understand the language that increasingly appears in high-stakes tests--students must be
proficient in academic English. English language learners are at a serious disadvantage.
Two word problems in mathematics illustrate the difficulties that these students can
encounter in instruction and in tests: synonyms, conditional constructions, prepositional
phrases, and pronoun references, to name a few.

This study examined the development of language in low-SES rural Appalachian children from kindergarten through middle childhood. Findings showed that the children's language skills improved significantly between kindergarten and middle childhood, with all middle childhood language means within the average range. However, all areas of language except the ability to correctly interpret nonliteral language remained significantly below normative population means. Girls performed significantly better than did boys and higher-SES girls performed better than lower-SES girls. Nonliteral language and receptive syntax were relative strengths and vocabulary and pragmatic judgment were relative weaknesses. Use of grammatical markers of Appalachian English was not related to language skills and, as a group, these children demonstrated adequate phonological working memory. Standardized measures of morphology and syntax best classified children into groups who received remedial services for reading or other language-related tasks and those who did not. Implications of these finding are discussed.

In an attempt to accelerate the development of formal operations in average young adolescents, intervention lessons relating to all formal schemata were designed in the context of school science courses. Over a period of two years, up to 30 intervention lessons were given by science teachers to their classes in eight schools. Boys who started the program aged 12+ showed a pre-posttest effect size on Piagetian tests of 0.89 SD compared with control classes. In terms of British norms for the development of operational thinking this was a mean change from the 51st to the 74th percentile. Neither the middle school students nor the 12+ girls showed greater gain than the controls. Gains were shown by girls in one 11+ class and in the two 11+ laboratory classes. In the laboratory school students given intervention lessons by the researchers maintained their gains over controls in formal operations at a delayed posttest one year after cessation of the program. There was no effect on tests of science achievement during the intervention. It was argued that the interventions needed to be accompanied by in-service training designed to enable teachers to change their teaching style in line with their students' increased operational thinking capacity.

Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, girls earn higher grades than boys in all major subjects. Girls, however, do not outperform boys on achievement or IQ tests. To date, explanations for the underprediction of girls' GPAs by standardized tests have focused on gender differences favoring boys on such tests. The authors' investigation suggests an additional explanation: Girls are more selfdisciplined, and this advantage is more relevant to report card grades than to achievement or aptitude tests. Eighth-grade girls at an urban magnet school were more self-disciplined than their male counterparts according to delay of gratification measures and self-report, teacher, and parent ratings. Whereas girls earned higher grades in all courses, they did only marginally better on an achievement test and worse on an IQ test. Mediation analyses suggested girls earned higher GPAs at least in part because they were more self-disciplined.

The Bookmark method for setting standards on educational tests is currently one of the most popular standard-setting methods. However, research to support the method is scarce. In this report, we review the published and unpublished literature on this method as well as some seminal work in the area of evaluating standard-setting studies. Our review highlights both strengths and limitations of the method. Strengths include its wide acceptance and panelist confidence in the method. Limitations include a potential bias to produce lower-than-intended standards and problems in selecting the most appropriate response probability value for ordering the items presented to panelists. It is clear that more research on this method is needed to support its wide use. Several areas for future research to better understand the validity of the Bookmark method for setting standards on educational tests are presented.

Examinations Authonty Studies in reading comprehension and listening comprehension have investigated the processing skills used by skilled and less-skilled readers/listeners Some of these studies observe that skilled readers/listeners are those who are better able to engage in top-down processing whereas others maintain that they are better able to engage in bottom-up processing This study investigates the kind of processing skill that is more important in discriminating the performance of L2 learners on listening test items in large-scale public examinations in Hong Kong over a period of seven years Two vanables were investigated the schema type of the aural text and the question type "Two types of schema were identified the first type is referred to as the 'non-matching' schema type in which the schema activated by the initial linguistic input is not congruent with the subsequent linguistic input Candidates need to be able to process the incoming linguistic cues rapidly and accurately, and to revise their developing schema accordingly in order to get the correct answer The second type is referred to as the 'matching' schema type in which the schema activated by the initial linguistic input is congruent with the subsequent linguistic input Hence candidates could rely on top-down processing to get the correct answer Two types of questions were also identified The first type is 'global' questions which required candidates to understand the text as a whole and to draw conclusions or inferences Hence, candidates need to process all the key linguistic cues rapidly and accurately in order to get the correct answer The second type is 'local' questions which only required candidates to pick out specific details Hence, even if candidates failed to process some linguistic cues, they would still be able to get the correct answer The mean cntenon scores for the correct answers, which indicate the performance of the candidates who chose these answers in the entire paper, were compared for schema type and question type using a series of paired Mests The results showed that 'nonmatchmg' items yield significantly higher mean cntenon scores than 'matching' items irrespective of question type, suggesting that bottom-up processing was more important than top-down processing in discnminating the bstening performance of L2 learners on test items

Standardized tests have been increasingly controversial over recent years in high-stakes admission decisions. Their role in operationalizing definitions of merit and qualification is especially contested, but in law schools this challenge has become particularly intense. Law schools have relied on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and an INDEX (which includes grade point average [GPA]) since the 1940s. The LSAT measures analytic and logical reasoning and reading. Research has focused on the validity of the LSAT as a predictor of 1st-year GPA in law school, with almost no research on predicting lawyering effectiveness. This article examines the comparative potential between the LSAT versus noncognitive (e.g., personality, situational judgment, and biographical information) predictors of lawyering effectiveness. Theoretical links between 26 lawyering effectiveness factors and potential predictors are discussed and evaluated. Implications for broadening the criterion space, diversity in admissions, and the practice of law are discussed.

Abstract: A driving force in standards-based educational reform was the 1983 release of" A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform"(National Commission of Excellence in Education [NCEE], 1983). The report called for" an end to the minimum competency ...

At all levels of education, there is great concern about the low performance of racially and linguistically diverse students-African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans-on standardized tests, as well as their under-representation in gifted education. While fewer concerns and criticisms target achievement tests, a wealth of controversy surrounds intelligence tests (also known as cognitive ability tests), specifically given the consistently lower performance of Black students on intelligence tests compared to White students. More so than with achievement tests, intelligence tests carry the burden of being associated with innate ability, particularly by laypersons and those unfamiliar with the purposes and limitations of tests; thus, to those unfamiliar with the purposes and limitations of tests, when one group performs lower than another group, the results, they believe, may be attributed to heredity or genetic inferiority. This simplistic explanation ignores the role of environment, including education and opportunity to learn, on students' test performance.

A general theory of domain identification is used to describe achievement barriers still faced by women in advanced quantitative areas and by African Americans in school. The theory assumes that sustained school success requires identification with school and its subdomains; that societal pressures on these groups (e.g., economic disadvantage, gender roles) can frustrate this identification; and that in school domains where these groups are negatively stereotyped, those who have become domain identified face the further barrier of stereotype threat, the threat that others' judgments or their own actions will negatively stereotype them in the domain. Research shows that this threat dramatically depresses the standardized test performance of women and African Americans who are in the academic vanguard of their groups (offering a new interpretation of group differences in standardized test performance), that it causes disidentification with school, and that practices that reduce this threat can reduce these negative effects.

Gum chewing has been shown to improve cognitive performance in adults; however, gum chewing has not been evaluated in children. This study examined the effects of gum chewing on standardized test scores and class grades of eighth grade math students. Math classes were randomized to a gum chewing (GC) condition that provided students with gum during class and testing, or a control condition with no gum (NGC). Participants included 108 students. The math sections of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) and the Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJ-III), and math class grades were used to assess academic performance. Students in the gum chewing condition improved standardized test scores and maintained higher grades in math class compared to those in the no-gum chewing condition. These results are encouraging as gum chewing may be a cost-effective and easily implemented method to increase student performance. Trial Registration: NCT00792116. Ó