In this study, we examine the impact of two techniques to account for test disengagement—(a) removing unengaged test takers from the sample and (b) adjusting test scores to remove rapidly guessed items—on estimates of school contributions to student growth, achievement gaps, and summer learning loss.
By: Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland
Topics: Measurement & scaling, School & test engagement, Student growth & accountability policies
Social-emotional learning (SEL) is gaining prominence in education practice and policy. Research shows that SEL can be improved by short-term, targeted interventions and longer-term strategies to improve school contextual factors. The present study examines the stability of academic achievement relative to four SEL domains (growth mindset, self-efficacy, social awareness, and self-management).
By: James Soland, Megan Kuhfeld, Emily Wolk, Sharon Bi
Topics: Measurement & scaling, Social-emotional learning, Student growth & accountability policies
This study investigated the violation of local independence assumptions within unidimensional item response theory (IRT) models.
By: Guirong Li, Millie Lin, Chengfang Liu, Angela Johnson, Yanyan Li, Prashant Loyalka
Topics: Empowering educators, High-growth schools & practices
This study investigates the impact of a teacher professional development (PD) program in rural Rwanda, part of a randomized controlled trial of Save the Children’s early literacy intervention, “Literacy Boost.”
By: Angela Johnson, Catherine Galloway, Elliot Friedlander, Claude Goldenberg
Topics: Empowering educators, Early learning, Reading & language arts
In this study, repeated measures of math achievement and self-efficacy are used to fit a variety of latent curve models that jointly estimate growth in both constructs.
By: James Soland
Topics: Growth modeling, Social-emotional learning, Student growth & accountability policies
Summer credit recovery impact on newcomer English Learners
This article investigates the efficacy of a summer credit recovery program aimed at expanding high school newcomer ELs’ access to academic subjects.
By: Angela Johnson
Topics: English Language Learners, College & career readiness
The (non)impact of differential test taker engagement on aggregated scores
Disengaged test taking tends to be most prevalent with low-stakes tests. This has led to questions about the validity of aggregated scores from large-scale international assessments such as PISA and TIMSS, as previous research has found a meaningful correlation between the mean engagement and mean performance of countries.
By: Steven Wise, James Soland, Yuanchao Bo