U.S. public schools are engaged in an unprecedented effort to expand tutoring in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Broad-based support for scaling tutoring emerged, in part, because of the large effects on student achievement found in prior meta-analyses. We conduct an expanded meta-analysis of 265 randomized controlled trials and explore how…

The transition to virtual learning during the pandemic highlighted critical aspects of educational and teacher self-efficacy (TSE). Despite the challenges K-12 students historically faced in digital environments, recent shifts necessitated a deeper exploration of online teacher roles. This study examined the relationship between TSE in virtual…

Teacher self-efficacy, the belief teachers have that they can make a difference for their students or have a positive impact on their students' academic careers, has been studied for years. Very little is known about teacher self-efficacy in school librarians, however. The following study examined the difference in school librarians' teacher…

Background: Early-grade reading proficiency is well documented as in important factor for later academic success. Researchers and educators consider the achievement of reading proficiency by the end of grade three to be crucial to future academic success and financial independence (Hein et al., 2013; La Paro & Pianta, 2000; Singh, 2013). As…

Statewide assessments in reading and math are required every year under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, at an annual expense of billions of taxpayer dollars. Analyzing 10 years of school-level results from public schools in two states-- Nebraska and Texas--we found that year-to-year correlations of schools' test scores were…

The U.S. population has become more racially and ethnically diverse over time. The Latinx population growth makes Spanish the most common language encountered in non-native English-speaking populations such as Texas. The research objective of this study was to examine if implementing a One-Way Dual Language Education (DLE) Program could result in…

Learning to read marks an important milestone in children. Extensive research with monolingual and bilingual children has demonstrated that language comprehension (LC) forms fundamental building blocks for reading comprehension (RC). However, mixed findings are reported among studies that compare readings skills in children with and without…

Purpose: The overarching purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the extent to which Grade 4 Black students differed in their reading performance on the Texas state-mandated assessment by their gender and by their economic status. Specifically addressed was the degree to which differences were presented in their ability to…

Education laws in the U.S. hold schools accountable for including students with intellectual disability on statewide reading assessments. Students with intellectual disability have been taking general or alternate reading assessments over the past two decades. However, very little attention has been given to the results of these assessments. The…

The purpose of this study is to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the learning of students in public education through the analysis of standardized assessment performance before and during COVID-19. The study also compares virtual learning and face-to-face students' change in performance on the standardized assessments. To answer the…

Despite many calls, there is little research addressing teachers' knowledge of reading assessments and how they utilize assessments for reading instruction. Therefore, the current research developed and validated a reliable measure of teachers' perceptions and knowledge of reading assessments, called the "Perceptions and Knowledge of…

The present study investigated the predictability of a computer-adaptive, curriculum-based reading assessment for measuring second-grade students' overall and comprehension reading achievement on a standardized reading achievement test. Specifically, second-grade student scores (N = 428) of the Istation's Indicators of Progress for Early Reading…

Intervention research in education is sometimes criticized for the use of experimenter developed assessments, especially when these are over aligned with treatment. At the same time, intervention researchers sometimes prefer locally developed assessments because they appear to be more sensitive to treatment effects even when the test is not…

Both school and district administrators use the results of standardized, large-scale tests to inform decisions about the need for, or success of, educational programs and interventions. However, test results at the school level are subject to random fluctuations due to changes in cohort, test items, and other factors outside of the school's…

The study of the territorial difference in educational achievement is a widely debated topic, in particular in Italy for the presence of the well-known strong regional disparities. National and international large scale assessments confirmed that the main characteristic of the Italian school system is the geographical cleavage between North and…