This dissertation demonstrates the interdisciplinary integration of critical appreciative inquiry (a qualitative planning process focused on inclusion in decision-making) and multi-attribute utility theory (a quantitative evaluation process focused on rationality in decision-making). Principles of positive psychology and decision-making underlay…

Requiring teachers to complete a performance-based assessment in the form of a teacher performance assessment is becoming a common way for initial teacher licensure or advancing a license. While some traditionally- and alternatively-licensed teachers from all content areas may have to complete some type of performance-based assessment for initial…

States, programs, and schools have long focused on the inputs of teacher preparation--the rules for candidates and the preparation programs they attend--because inputs were thought to predict teacher effectiveness, and because they were often the best option available. But in the early 2000s, policymakers began trying to evaluate preparation…

Background: In a digital age, service-learning partner organizations can expand beyond geographical locations accessible to the students. Particularly within fields digitizing archival sources, including art history, many learning outcomes achieved in traditional on-site service-learning programs can also result from remote access to staff and…

Some universal behavioural screening processes require classroom teachers to complete a risk assessment measure on each student in their class, leading to a possible, but unexplored, problem: risk assessment scores may be influenced by the teacher completing the measure. The current study investigated whether teacher-reported risk assessment…

In the wake of the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation reform, school leaders increasingly look to district leaders for support, coaching, and leadership. District leaders--superintendents, assistant or area superintendents, specialists, principal supervisors, and school business administrators--can hold varying and multiple roles…

The 2019-20 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report provides insight into our sponsorship work during the year and the performance of our sponsored schools. In a typical year, performance includes state academic test outcomes, financial measures and operations and governance measures. Due to the cancellation of state testing last spring, you'll see that…

This article highlights the development process and data-driven decisions that characterized a 5-year iterative process of development and evaluation of a Tier 2 early language curriculum, "Story Friends." This curriculum was specifically designed to be effective and feasible for high fidelity implementation in preschool settings.…

The present study discusses the relevance of measures of lexical diversity (LD) to the assessment of learner corpora. It also argues that existing measures of LD, many of which have become specialized for use with language corpora, are fundamentally measures of lexical repetition, are based on an etic perspective of language, and lack construct…

There is limited research assessing the effectiveness of family engagement for improving permanency for children. An important challenge is that randomized designs are not feasible for evaluating these practices because effective implementation of family engagement requires systemic change. Findings from a national evaluation are presented to…

Internships play a pivotal role in the future of school psychology, and internship training is influenced by disciplinary trends including (a) an increased focus on accountability and demonstrating the positive impact of trainees' practices on student outcomes and (b) growing emphasis on scientifically based and empirically based practice. These…

This quantitative study investigated the relationship between teacher dispositions, subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and reasons that school principals recommend non-renewal of teachers' contracts. Nearly 2,000 school principals in 13 states completed an emailed survey. In deciding whether to non-renew a teacher contract,…

The overall purpose of this study is to explore the creation and implementation of competency models in higher education masters level preparation programs. The study answers five research questions. Why and how did two higher education preparation programs create a professional competency model for the graduate students in the program and what…

The Adolescent Responses to Alcohol and Drug Offers Scale (ARADOS) is a self-report questionnaire designed to assess a respondent's anticipated emotional reactions and intended use of cognitive-behavioral refusal skills in response to an offer of alcohol or other drug. A sample of 267 students enrolled in the 11th and 12th grades of four public…

Reaction questionnaires administered at the conclusion of a training program are a common method of evaluation. Because such questionnaires are often constructed and analyzed in an ad hoc manner, their usefulness is often difficult to gauge. However, if properly constructed and analyzed, such instruments can help to make clear the strengths and…