Over a 6-year period, a sociolinguistic and sociocultural project was undertaken by Alaska Native expert educators and linguists (aka the Yup'ik Expert Group) from the Yup'ik community in the Lower Kuskokwim School District, Central Alaska. The native experts developed their own culturally sustainable, valid, and reliable Kindergarten through…

Language assessment literacy (LAL) has recently gained substantial attention among language educators and other stakeholders. However, existing models focus almost exclusively on teachers, test developers, and administrators, and lack students' perspectives in their conceptualizations. To address this gap, with this exploratory study we aimed to…

This paper examined to what extent causal explanation speaking tasks (CESTs) are cognitively appropriate for assessing young language learners' (YLLs) L2 speaking. Ninety-six YLLs (48 from Grade 4 and 6 each) in China performed two CESTs in both L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). They also completed receptive and productive L2 vocabulary size tests.…

This study was aimed at investigating the influencing factors on students' English proficiency levels based on Cambridge English Tests for Children and Young Learners. A preliminary survey was undertaken to select the sample of elementary schools that offered English as a subject. As many as 157 students who sat in Grades 4, 5, and 6 from nine…

As a condition of receiving federal funds, the Every Student Succeeds Act requires state education agencies to implement statewide assessments in mathematics and English language arts every year in third through eighth grade and once in ninth through 12th grade. The federal law also requires a science assessment once in each of three grade spans:…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of Uncommon Schools in a turnaround setting. Uncommon was awarded a 2016 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) to support TurnNJ, a project intended to support Uncommon's whole-school turnaround efforts in Camden and Newark, New Jersey. The study…

This study aims to investigate the influence of story creation on young EFL learners' reading performance. Action research was adopted to examine the effects of two different story reading projects in a library setting in Taiwan. Each project comprised a group of 19 young EFL learner from Grades 4 to 6 (aged 10-12). The first group's activities…

The purpose of this study was to explore differences in teacher perceptions of RTI based on years of teaching experience and educational setting, and the correlation between teacher perceptions and student performance on the third through eighth grade MAAP ELA and mathematics assessments. Data was obtained directly from participants, utilizing a…

In Fall and Winter 2022-2023, the NSCAS assessments were administered in ELA and mathematics for grades 3-8. In Spring 2022-2023, the NSCAS assessments were administered in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics for grades 3-8 and in science for grades 5 and 8. The purposes of the NSCAS assessments are to measure and report Nebraska students'…

In response to a request for additional analyses, in particular reporting confidence intervals around the results, we re-analyzed the data from prior studies. This supplementary report presents the results of the additional analyses addressing classification accuracy, reliability, and criterion-related validity evidence. For ease of reference, we…

This report presents findings from a follow-up exploratory study of the development of writing ability in an attempt to identify key component skills and competencies for elementary school literacy learners, grades 2nd, 4th and 6th. The first evaluation consisted in scoring first draft narrative texts for coherence, the second, an assessment of…

This study examines the development of the reading comprehension of young learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) in Hong Kong, with reference to the Simple View of Reading model. The model postulates that reading comprehension is a product of decoding and linguistic comprehension. A sample of 121 ethnic minority senior primary students was…

In response to a request for additional analyses, in particular reporting confidence intervals around the results, we re-analyzed the data from prior studies. This supplementary report presents the results of the additional analyses addressing classification accuracy, reliability, and criterion-related validity evidence. For ease of reference, we…

This simulation study examines the measurement precision, item exposure rates, and the depth of the MAP® Growth™ item pools under various grade-level restrictions. Unlike most summative assessments, MAP Growth allows examinees to see items from any grade level, regardless of the examinee's actual grade level. It does not limit the test to items…

This study examined indicators of cheating on a statewide summative assessment for grades 3--8 over a 4-year period. Between year 2 and year 3 of this study, the state launched an aggressive, highly publicized investigation into cheating by educators. The basis of the investigation was an erasure analysis. The current study found that the number…