When student achievement is assessed, we seek to elicit a student's maximum performance -- a goal requiring the assumption that the student is fully engaged. Otherwise, to the extent that disengagement occurs, test performance is likely to suffer. Effectively managing test-taking disengagement requires an understanding of the testing conditions…

One of the educational reform methods sanctioned under No Child Left Behind legislation is the development of charter schools (King, 2007). While many studies have focused on comparing the student academic achievement rates of charter schools to traditional public schools, little empirical research exists comparing student academic achievement…

PIRLS is an international assessment of reading comprehension at the fourth grade that has been conducted every five years since 2001. In 2011, nationally representative samples of students in 49 countries participated in PIRLS and prePIRLS. Forty-five countries assessed fourth grade students, and some countries participated in one or more of the…

This study aimed to demonstrate an approach to measuring the value-added contribution to academic achievement made by education, and to identify the direct and indirect effects of a school's practices and its contexts. Multilevel modeling using hierarchical linear model (HLM) was employed to adjust the effect of pupil background characteristics…