One of the challenges in scoring constructed-response (CR) items and tasks is ensuring that rater drift does not occur during or across scoring windows. Rater drift reflects changes in how raters interpret and use established scoring criteria to assign essay scores. Calibration is a process used to help control rater drift and, as such, serves as…

Many assessments of writing proficiency that aid in making high-stakes decisions consist of several essay tasks evaluated by a combination of human holistic scores and computer-generated scores for essay features such as the rate of grammatical errors per word. Under typical conditions, a summary writing score is provided by a linear combination…

Although many summer undergraduate research programs made the decision to delay, cancel, or suspend their summer experiences in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Morehouse College McNair Scholars Program instead offered a completely virtual summer research experience to 14 Scholars with faculty-led remote research. The program…

In this research, we investigated the feasibility of implementing the "e-rater"® scoring engine as a check score in place of all-human scoring for the "Graduate Record Examinations"® ("GRE"®) revised General Test (rGRE) Analytical Writing measure. This report provides the scientific basis for the use of e-rater as a…

Given the serious consequences of making ill-fated admissions and funding decisions for applicants to graduate and professional school, it is important to rely on sound evidence to optimize such judgments. Previous meta-analytic research has demonstrated the generalizable validity of the "GRE"® General Test for predicting academic…

Besides traditional admissions criteria, research-intensive social work PhD programs may rely on personal interviews and curriculum vitae or resumes to gauge prior research experience to determine applicants' fit for the research-related productivity expected in their programs. Case record review of social work PhD candidates (n=56) entering the…

This survey study investigated how graduate school admissions committees perceive and use the "GRE"® General Test and "GRE"® Subject Tests after the launch of the "GRE"® revised General Test in August 2011. These perceptions and uses impact the validity of the tests. Prior research about the perceptions and uses of…

Purpose: Graduate admission has become a critical process for quality assurance in tertiary education. Hitherto, most research has investigated the validity of admissions instruments. However, surprisingly little work has been conducted on the overall organization of admission, which often remains "informal, ad hoc, and lacking in…

In the summer of 2013, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) issued public, highly-visible ratings of teacher education programs as part of their ambitious and controversial Teacher Prep Review. We provide the first empirical examination of NCTQ ratings, beginning with a descriptive overview of the ratings and documentation of how they…

An old comedy routine on Saturday Night Live by Father Guido Sarducci introduced a "Five-Minute University," because five minutes is all that's remembered after graduation anyway. In counterpoint, we discuss "cycling," a teaching method for memory enhancement. Our principal implementation consists of offering a simple version…

Multitiered frameworks of service delivery have traditionally underserved students with mental health needs. Whereas research has supported the assessment and intervention of social and academic behavior across tiers, evidence is limited with regard to mental health concerns including internalizing behaviors (e.g., anxiety and depression). In…

Automated scoring models for the "e-rater"® scoring engine were built and evaluated for the "GRE"® argument and issue-writing tasks. Prompt-specific, generic, and generic with prompt-specific intercept scoring models were built and evaluation statistics such as weighted kappas, Pearson correlations, standardized difference in…

The goal of an educational system or degree program is to "educate" students. This immediately raises the question of what does it mean to "educate" students. All academic institutions, degree programs and content areas are typically expected to answer this question and establish appropriate academic expectations both within…

This study examines how GRE scores can be used to better understand Education doctoral candidates' methodology choices for the dissertation as well as their persistence behaviors. Candidates' of one online doctoral education program were examined. Results of a MANOVA suggested that there is no difference in GRE scores based on doctoral candidates'…

The literature and the employee and workforce surveys rank collaborative problem solving (CPS) among the top 5 most critical skills necessary for success in college and the workforce. This paper provides a review of the literature on CPS and related terms, including a discussion of their definitions, importance to higher education and workforce…