High school students with high-incidence disabilities and struggling writers face considerable challenges when taking high-stakes writing assessments designed to examine their suitability for entrance to college. I examined the effectiveness of a writing intervention for improving these students' performance on a popular college entrance exam, the…

At the start of the 21st century large scale educational initiatives reshaped the landscape of general education setting rigorous academic expectations to all students. Despite the legal efforts to improve K-12 education, an abundance of research indicates that students entering college often lack basic learning and study skills. For adolescents…

Test anxiety is one of the most debilitating and disruptive factors associated with underachievement and failure in schools (Birenbaum, Menucha, Nasser, & Fadia, 1994; Tobias, 1985). Researchers have suggested that interventions that combine multiple test-anxiety reduction techniques are most effective at reducing test anxiety levels (Ergene,…

The purpose of this action research case study was to explore attitudes and beliefs regarding strategies to improve math placement scores for low-socioeconomic community college students at an urban campus. Using a pragmatic worldview, qualitative techniques were used to gather data to explore this problem at a single community college located in…

This study examined the effects of being taught the Mayfield's Four Questions multiple-choice test-taking strategy on the perceived self-efficacy and multiple-choice test scores of nursing students in a two-year associate degree program. Experimental and control groups were chosen by stratified random sampling. Subjects completed the 10-statement…

Although much is known about how students perform on standardized tests, little research exists concerning how students think and process while taking such tests. This mixed methods action research study was designed to investigate if a constructivist approach to test preparation could yield improved results for 37 English language arts freshmen…