There is a vast body of literature documenting the positive impacts that rater training and calibration sessions have on inter-rater reliability as research indicates several factors including frequency and timing play crucial roles towards ensuring inter-rater reliability. Additionally, increasing amounts research indicate possible links in…

The current paper on writing assessment surveys the literature on the reliability and validity of essay tests. The paper aims to examine the two concepts in relationship with essay testing as well as to provide a snapshot of the current understandings of the reliability and validity of essay tests as drawn in recent research studies. Bearing in…

Critical thinking is the focal point missed in many students' educations. Students are taught memorization with little time left for the development of critical thinking skills which allows for a deeper understanding and a richer experience. Learning to ask appropriate questions and deduce information in order to build a deeper connection to the…

The Investigators studied scoring reliability of Candidates' ten day unit plans of instruction through prescribed action research projects, across three academic years. Scoring of the projects in year one provided opportunities for further refinement of the action research evaluation methods in year two. Across three terms in years one and two…

What do we do when we read in another language? How do we make sense of the lexical and syntactic structures on the page? This study's development and use of the Miscue Coding for Metacognitive Strategies (MCMS), a foreign language assessment tool, offers language students and instructors a holistic approach to considering these questions. In this…

This study sought to determine whether GRE subscores (or GMAT) could predict graduation rates in related areas (math-oriented majors for GRE quantitative, etc.) in a sample of over 9,000 graduate students at a major public research university. Because few low quantitative scores were present in math-oriented majors, an attempt was made to…

The purpose of this report is to provide a detailed overview of the development and initial validation of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). The MSLQ is an 81-item, self-report instrument designed to measure college students' motivational orientations and their use of various learning strategies (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, &…

A cut score validity analysis for a pretest writing prompt and the SAT Verbal and Math assessments was performed for academic writing course placement. This study was carried out as part of a broader program of assessment aimed at understanding the impact of the writing course and eventually set the baseline for assessing the impact of 'writing…