Studies have identified negative effects of cortisol, a stress hormone, on academic performance. Because natural disasters induce community-wide stress, students who experience natural disasters may subsequently perform worse academically. Our study is the first to examine the immediate effects of close exposure to a natural disaster on academic…

The present study aims to examine gender differential item functioning (DIF) in the reading comprehension section of a high stakes test using cognitive diagnosis models. Based on the multiple-group generalized deterministic, noisy "and" gate (MG G-DINA) model, the Wald test and likelihood ratio test are used to detect DIF. The flagged…

Metacognitive awareness is considered a crucial factor in reading comprehension. In the present study, the quantitative research method was applied using descriptive statistics, T-test, and ANOVA to identify: (1) What is second language (L2) Vietnamese students' metacognitive awareness of reading strategies? (2) Are there any significant…

Originally designed for students in Grades 3 through 5, MOCCA (formerly the Multiple-choice Online Causal Comprehension Assessment), identifies students who struggle with comprehension, and helps uncover why they struggle. There are many reasons why students might not comprehend what they read. They may struggle with decoding, or reading words…

In the early 90's, the United States reformed its welfare system through state waivers and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. These changes altered family resources and potential investments for childhood human capital, which in turn could affect later adult outcomes. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I examine…

The Hierarchical Diagnostic Classification Model (HDCM) reflects on the sequences of the presentation of the essential materials and attributes to answer the items of a test correctly. In this study, a foreign language reading comprehension test was analyzed employing HDCM and the generalized deterministic-input, noisy and gate (G-DINA) model to…

In recent ACT mode comparability studies, students testing on laptop or desktop computers earned slightly higher scores on average than students who tested on paper, especially on the ACT® reading and English tests (Li et al., 2017). Equating procedures adjust for such "mode effects" to make ACT scores comparable regardless of testing…

With the advent of new research paradigms and the prevalence of diverse influential factors, the intriguing issue nowadays is to identify what actually determines English as a second language (ESL) learners' reading comprehension. This study examined gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and ethnicity as predictors of ESL learners' reading age and…

This research investigated the relationship between reading maturity, reading strategy use, and gender with Iranian EFL undergraduates' reading comprehension. The results revealed that the most preferred strategies were cognitive in nature. Moreover, the Iranian EFL undergraduates were intellectually enriched by most of what they read and enjoy…

This pilot study explores the extent to which frequent quizzes given in a developmental Academic Critical Reading (ACR) course in a community college affects student success on a standardized CUNY (The City University of New York) assessment test on reading skills. Participants included 41 students in two class sections of ACR class who received…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to the educational system in Nebraska and across the world. At the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, schools in Nebraska were forced to replace on-site instruction with virtual instruction. During the 2020-2021 academic year, many students learned online or under hybrid learning formats.…

Three mode comparability studies were conducted on the following Saturday national ACT test dates: October 26, 2019, December 14, 2019, and February 8, 2020. The primary goal of these studies was to evaluate whether ACT scores exhibited mode effects between paper and online testing that would necessitate statistical adjustments to the online…

Gender fairness in testing can be impeded by the presence of differential item functioning (DIF), which potentially causes test bias. In this study, the presence and causes of gender-related DIF were investigated with real data from 800 items answered by 250,000 test takers. DIF was examined using the Mantel-Haenszel and logistic regression…

Many students still leave school without a good grasp of basic literacy, despite the negative implications for future educational and labour market outcomes. We evaluate a programme that involves changing how resources are used within classrooms to reinforce the teaching of literacy. Specifically, the programme involves training teaching…

This study represents program-level action research. A U.S. university Spanish language program had a goal for students to reach the ACTFL (2012) Intermediate Mid level after 2 years. An empirical question that resulted after regular end-of-year testing was whether the students were doing their best on assessments. To investigate this, 253…