Open-ended verbal creativity assessments are commonly administered in psychological research and in educational practice to elementary-aged children. Children's responses are then typically rated by teams of judges who are trained to identify original ideas, hopefully with a degree of inter-rater agreement. Even in cases where the judges are…

This study details the construction of parameters for generating subskill mastery math measures to be used for screening, intervention planning, progress monitoring, and proximal program evaluation. Parameters for generating assessment measures were built and tested to verify initial equivalence of generated measures using potential digits correct…

Few assessment tools have been designed to assess motor creativity, and the existing tools have limitations. To bridge this gap, the current study aimed at designing a new movement creativity assessment tool that considers the unique features underlying the expression of creativity through movement. A modified Delphi technique was used to collect…

The aim of this study was to determine whether the reliability of raters was provided by assessing reading prosody using the Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MDFS). The study was completed with a cross-sectional design, and in line with this, the prosodic reading skills of 41 fifth-grade students were rated by elementary school classroom teachers…

Classroom observations increasingly inform high-stakes decisions and research in education, including the allocation of school funding and the evaluation of school-based interventions. However, trends in rater scoring tendencies over time may undermine the reliability of classroom observations. Accordingly, the present investigations, grounded in…

Teacher preparation programs face great challenges in ensuring their graduates are prepared for the demands of today's classrooms. The authors explore how teacher accountability has evolved based upon federal legislation leading to adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Recognizing that future teachers will be held accountable for…

This study aims to analyze two coursebooks, namely, "Texture of English 4" and "My English 5" on the basis of to what extent the activities and tasks included reflect the intelligent types proposed by multiple intelligences theory. Taking the general characteristics of the intelligences into account, a checklist has been…

The authors report the effects of a single-case, multiple-probe design investigation for students with learning disabilities (LD) in Grades 4 and 5. Seven students classified as LD and with persistent difficulty with informational-text comprehension from two elementary schools participated. The study compared social studies learning across two…

The purpose of this study was to rate oral retellings of fifth graders to determine how passages, raters, and rating occasions affect those ratings, and to identify what combination of those elements produce reliable retelling ratings. A group of 36 fifth grade students read and orally retold three contemporary realistic fiction passages. Two…

Teacher observations have become a national education phenomenon, mandated by federal policies and promoted by philanthropists. They are crucial components of teacher evaluation systems that often have high stakes for teachers and school systems, but have sparked little innovation. Recent calls to make teacher evaluations better, faster, and…

Many students struggle with writing; however, curriculum-based measures (CBM) of writing often use assessment criteria that focus primarily on mechanics. When academic development is assessed in this way, more complex aspects of a student's writing, such as the expression and development of ideas, may be neglected. The current study was a…

The reliability of data is a critical issue in decision-making for practitioners in the school. Percent Agreement and Cohen's kappa are the two most widely reported indices of inter-rater reliability, however, a recent Monte Carlo study on the reliability of multi-category scales found other indices to be more trustworthy given the type of data…

The authors developed the Interpersonal Behavior Questionnaire for Children with the aim of assessing the constructs of the interpersonal circumplex model, that is, Dominance and Love and their possible combinations, via third- to fifth-grade children's self- and peer reports. In the three studies presented herein, the authors examined several…

To gain new perspective on the development of understandings and perceptions of income inequality, this study compared the reactions of six, eight, and 10-year-olds to a rich man and a poor man and the winners and losers of a contest of skill and a game of chance. Age differences in attributions for outcomes reflected a strengthening with age of…

Responsive teaching occurs when teachers take up and "respond" to their students' ideas during instruction (J. L. Pierson, 2008). Although responsive teaching is gaining recognition as an effective strategy for encouraging student learning, few methods of analysis are capable of characterizing the different ways in which teachers take up…