For many teachers, the classroom observation has been the only opportunity to receive direct feedback from another school professional. As such, it is an indispensable part of every teacher evaluation system. Yet it also requires a major time commitment from teachers, principals, and peer observers. To justify the investment of time and resources,…

Two questions about certainty in mathematics are asked. First, is mathematical knowledge known with certainty? Second, why is the belief in the certainty of mathematical knowledge so widespread and where does it come from? This question is little addressed in the literature. In explaining the reasons for these beliefs, both cultural-historical and…

Common to all models of reading comprehension is the assumption that a reader's level of comprehension is heavily influenced by their standards of coherence (van den Broek, Risden, & Husbye-Hartman, 1995). Our discussion focuses on a subcomponent of the readers' standards of coherence: the coherence threshold. We situate this discussion within…

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) oral proficiency interview -- computer (OPIc) testing system represents an ambitious effort in language assessment: Assessing oral proficiency in over a dozen languages, on the same scale, from virtually anywhere at any time. Especially for users in contexts where multiple foreign…

While there is increasing recognition of the need to go beyond measures of mental ill health, there is a relative dearth of validated tools for assessing mental well-being among adolescents. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) is a promising tool for use in this context, and this study evaluated its use in an Australian context.…

Existing tests of interrater agreements have high statistical power; however, they lack specificity. If the ratings of the two raters do not show agreement but are not random, the current tests, some of which are based on Cohen's kappa, will often reject the null hypothesis, leading to the wrong conclusion that agreement is present. A new test of…

This essay reviews the changing functions, and effects, of citation systems in scholarly research as they move from a range of uses primarily oriented around knowledge networking and epistemic validation, to their use as a set of metrics oriented around evaluating and rewarding certain kinds of academic performance (e.g. "impact…

This paper aims to present a critical analysis of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check (PSC), with special focus on the relationship between the UK Department for Education's policy-making and the evidence considered in the process of developing and evaluating the PSC. The reports from the in-house Standards and Testing Agency and from commissioned…

The "Motor-Free Visual Perception Test-fourth edition" (MVPT-4) is a revised version of the "Motor-Free Visual Perception Test-third edition." The MVPT-4 is used to assess the visual-perceptual ability of individuals aged 4.0 through 80+ years via a series of visual-perceptual tasks that do not require a motor response. Test…

The Transition Planning Inventory-Second Edition (TPI-2) is an instrument to help plan the postsecondary transition of students who are benefiting from special education (SPED) services. It aims to identify the strengths, needs, and interests of students with disabilities. It is also a tool to support school systems to comply with the U.S. federal…

In recent years the use of expert judgement to set and maintain examination standards has been increasingly criticised in favour of approaches based on statistical modelling. This paper reviews existing research on this controversy and attempts to unify the evidence within a framework where expertise is utilised in the form of comparative…

In our commentary on this excellent set of articles on "Sourcing in the Reading Process," we endeavor to synthesize the findings from the seven articles and discuss future research. We discuss significant contributions related to source memory, source evaluation, use of sources in action and belief, integration of information from…

The purpose of this article of reflection is to raise awareness of how poor design of language assessments may have detrimental effects, if crucial qualities and technicalities of test design are not met. The article first discusses these central qualities for useful language assessments. Then, guidelines for creating listening assessments, as an…

Calls for replication studies are becoming more frequent, and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has now reached sufficient maturity to offer numerous studies that lend themselves to replication. Realistic and successful replications rely on transparency in terms of data, results, and methodology. Two published studies in the area of…

The 1961 Copyright Office study on renewals, authored by Barbara Ringer, has cast an outsized influence on discussions of the U.S. 1923-1963 public domain. As more concrete data emerge from initiatives such as the large-scale determination process in the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) project, questions are raised about the reliability…