Middle school is one of the most important times during which students gain knowledge. However, a large proportion of adolescents have continued to complete middle school without mastering essential knowledge of, and skills in, vocabulary and reading comprehension. Adolescents who miss school in the 30-60 days leading up to high-stakes exams…

Educational research is ubiquitous; however, agreement on best practices is not. Although parents, teachers, students, and communities have a vested interest in students' success, varying practices of what is taught, how it is taught, and to whom it is taught are still debated. This study expands upon work done by Dr. Scott Wurdinger and Dr. Ron…

This study explored the impact of the 95 Phonics Core Program® (95 PCP) on student literacy achievement across third graders who started the school year at different ability levels. The primary focus of this report was to investigate the relationship between changes in phonics scores with the beginning and end-of-year i-Ready® assessments and…

In international large-scale assessments, students may not be compelled to answer every test item: a student can decide to skip a seemingly difficult item or may drop out before the end of the test is reached. The way these missing responses are treated will affect the estimation of the item difficulty and student ability, and ultimately affect…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a significant difference in test scores on the Grade Five Reading State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness involving male and female students identified as having the characteristics of dyslexia who received early dyslexia intervention and those who received late dyslexia intervention,…

This quantitative study investigates the influence of teachers' emotional intelligence on student achievement in an American curriculum international school setting in Bangkok, Thailand. Amidst concerns over student proficiency levels in the United States and Thailand, the study aimed to identify whether teachers' emotional intelligence is linked…

Edmentum offers a personalized learning platform called Exact Path. This quasi-experimental study, designed to meet ESSA Tier 2 evidence and What Works Clearinghouse standards with reservations, aimed to assess the efficacy of Exact Path in a district from the Midwestern United States. The goal was to provide specific recommendations to educators…

Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin and his administration want to raise the bar for students to pass the state's standardized tests "from the lowest in the nation to the highest in the nation" by next spring. His goal is to close the "honesty gap" between the 79 percent of Virginia students who pass the state's tests and the 39…

State legislators recognized that students in the United States continue to struggle with reading and have begun implementing laws requiring schools to use science of reading-aligned curriculum when teaching reading (Schwartz, 2022). Many students lack the foundational skills to even begin learning how to read in grades K-3 (Kuhfeld et al., 2022).…

The purpose of this quantitative research was to examine parents, students, and staff perceptions of school climate in urban middle schools and explore if relationships exist between perceived school climate, perceived reading instruction, and reading performance as measured by the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR). The…

The Content Proximity Project was designed to improve the content validity of the MAP® Growth™ assessments while retaining the ability for the test to adapt off-grade and meet students wherever they are in their learning. Two main features of the project were the development of an enhanced item selection algorithm, and a spring pilot study…

Background: Policymakers have debated whether test scores represent students' maximum level of effort, prompting research into whether student-level financial incentives can improve test scores. If cash incentives are shown to improve students' test performance, there can be questions as to whether test scores obtained in the absence of financial…

This study investigated the relationship between reading skills and math achievement among high school students in the Central Delta Areas of Mississippi. The data sources included Reading skills measured by English II Criterion Reference Test (CRT) scores and Algebra I CRT scores from the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) for the…

School systems started the 2021-22 school year with extra resources and plans for recovery, but repeated resurgences of the COVID-19 virus thwarted hopes of a strong comeback. Schools continued to face a myriad of challenges including severe staff shortages, high rates of absenteeism and sickness, and rolling school closures forced by the…

International Large-Scale Assessments (LSA) allow comparisons of education systems' effectiveness in promoting student learning in specific domains, such as reading, mathematics, and science. However, it has been argued that students' scores in International LSAs mostly reflect general cognitive ability (g). This study examines the extent to which…