Running Records provide a standardized method for recording and assessing students' oral reading behaviors and are excellent formative assessment tools to guide instructional decision-making. This study expands on prior Running Record reliability work by evaluating the extent to which external raters and teachers consistently assessed students'…

Vocabulary skills are important for overall reading competence, but vocabulary assessment approaches that inform instructional decision-making and are sensitive to improvement are limited. This article describes a process for developing vocabulary measures designed to facilitate data-driven decision-making for kindergarten and first-grade students…

This study investigated the use of brief observations to measure implementation of small group interventions using the Quality of Intervention Delivery and Receipt (QIDR) tool. Videos of 10-min segments representing the beginning, middle, and end of each 30-min intervention lesson were coded for implementation. Results indicated that (a)…

Measuring the quality of classroom-based interactive shared book reading within the early childhood classroom represents a specific dimension of teacher-child interactions that is of great interest to researchers. This interest reflects decades of research demonstrating the benefit of reading to young children in both the home and the classroom.…

Computer-based curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is a relatively common practice, but surprisingly few studies have examined the reliability of computer-based CBM. This study sought to examine the reliability of CBM administered via paper/pencil versus the computer. Twenty-one of 25 students in two third-grade classes (N = 21) participated in two…

When classroom observations are increasingly used for accountability and evaluation purposes, a deeper understanding of the psychometric properties of such measurement tools is needed. The present study took a unique approach to examine the psychometric properties of a commonly used classroom observation measure by testing the reliability of…

Both school and district administrators use the results of standardized, large-scale tests to inform decisions about the need for, or success of, educational programs and interventions. However, test results at the school level are subject to random fluctuations due to changes in cohort, test items, and other factors outside of the school's…

We evaluated the score stability of the Framework for Teaching (FFT), a prominent observation instrument used for teacher evaluation. Three raters each scored 200 reading and mathematics lessons taught by 20 kindergarten teachers. Using Generalizability theory analyses, we decomposed the FFT's Classroom Environment, Instruction, and Total scores…

Student growth percentiles (SGPs) are currently used by several states and school districts to provide information about individual students as well as to evaluate teachers, schools, and school districts. For SGPs to be defensible for these purposes, they should be reliable. In this study, we examine the amount of systematic and random error in…

Curriculum-based measurement of oral reading fluency (CBM-R) is used as an indicator of reading proficiency, and to measure at risk students' response to reading interventions to help ensure effective instruction. The purpose of this study was to compare model-based words read correctly per minute (WCPM) scores (computerized oral reading…

Curriculum-based measurement of oral reading fluency (CBM-R) is used as an indicator of reading proficiency, and to measure at risk students' response to reading interventions to help ensure effective instruction. The purpose of this study was to compare model-based words read correctly per minute (WCPM) scores (computerized oral reading…

The purpose of this article is to provide a qualitative review of the published research on the Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance-3: Screener noting the psychometric properties and overall findings. Results from 10 studies were reviewed and summarized. Across the studies, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and inter-rater…

This study describes the development of a special education teacher observation protocol detailing the elements of effective decoding instruction. The psychometric properties of the protocol were investigated through many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM). Video observations of classroom decoding instruction from 20 special education teachers across…

The Child Observation Record (COR), initially developed in 1993 by HighScope Educational Research Foundation, is an observation-based instrument that provides systematic assessment of young children's knowledge and abilities in all major areas of development. Teachers or caregivers spend a few minutes each day writing brief notes or…

The purpose of this report is to investigate the feasibility of constructing a school-level measure of students' academic growth from kindergarten to grade 3, and to assess the validity and precision of that measure. The study measured schoolwide student growth for reading and math using student growth percentiles based on Maryland's 2014/15…