Educational assessment is used throughout the world for a range of different formative and summative purposes. Wherever an assessment is developed, whether by a teacher creating a quiz for their class, or by a testing company creating a high stakes assessment, it is necessary to decide how long the test should be. Specifically, how many questions…

This study explores faculty beliefs about teaching and learning in different institutional settings and over time. This study surveyed faculty at two Canadian universities, one research-intensive, the other teaching-intensive, using a conceptual replication of a survey originally administered in 1976. Some results differ from the original survey,…

Today's society places a lot of pressure on schools, teachers, and students to improve test scores. This paper discusses the possibility of using mathematical manipulatives to improve student test scores and students' attitudes towards mathematics. Forty-three Grade 2 students with age ranges between six and eight from a rural town in Saskatchewan…

The question of equivalence between two or more groups is frequently of interest to many applied researchers. Equivalence testing is a statistical method designed to provide evidence that groups are comparable by demonstrating that the mean differences found between groups are small enough that they are considered practically unimportant. Few…

Constructed-response (CR) questions are a mainstay of introductory physics textbooks and exams. However, because of the time, cost, and scoring reliability constraints associated with this format, CR questions are being increasingly replaced by multiple-choice (MC) questions in formal exams. The integrated testlet (IT) is a recently developed…

This study explored the validity of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale in a sample of 853 practicing teachers from Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Indonesia, and Oman. The authors used multigroup confirmatory factor analysis to test the factor structure and measurement invariance across settings, after which they examined the relationships…

Medical education in the United States and Canada continues to evolve. However, many of the changes in pedagogy are being made without appropriate evaluation. Here, we attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of lecture capture technology as a learning tool in Podiatric medical education. In this pilot project, student performance in an inaugural…

We examined how much agreement there was between scores from large-scale mandated assessments and report-card grades for 14,776 students in grades 3, 6, and 9 of a district in which conditions were conducive to alignment of assessments. We found significant mean differences between internal and external assessments: effect sizes were 0.29 to 0.63…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not survey medium (electronic versus paper format) has a significant effect on the results achieved. To compare survey media, responses from elementary students to British Columbia's Satisfaction Survey were analyzed. Although this study was not experimental in design, the data set served as a…

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is widely used to screen university applicants for whom English is not their native language. Although the cutoff scores vary, in Ontario those with scores much lower than 550 are rarely admitted to any university. Two exceptions are the University of Western Ontario and its affiliate, Brescia…

Examined the relative effectiveness of self-instruction training and rational-emotive counseling in alleviating test anxiety in 50 high school students. Results indicated both experimental treatments in both experiments were more effective than the control condition. In Experiment Two, the rational-emotive group was superior to the…

Compares scores of 3,443 third graders in 1956 and 4,378 third graders in 1977 on the California Short Form Test of Mental Maturity. Examines differences in factoral structure and differences in ability level between groups for factors (64 items related to 7 components) apparently measuring consistent abilities. (SB)

Assessed the effects of cohabitation on subsequent marital adjustment. A comparison of couples (N=54) who had lived together before marriage with couples (N=30) who had not, showed significant differences. Unexpectedly, noncohabiters obtained higher marital satisfaction scores. Possible explanations in terms of test items are suggested.…

Employed a discriminant analysis with a number of instruments to determine their relative power in classifying hyperactive children. Results indicated that only nine of 27 measures used had the potential to discriminate hyperactive from normal children. Only three measures were needed in the discriminant equation for accurate classification.…

Potential mechanisms mediating the facilitative effects of elaborative interrogation on associative memory were investigated with Canadian university students reading facts about Canadian provinces. One hundred subjects answered "why" questions about each fact, whereas 10 subjects in the control group did not. Conditions under which…