When administering an in-class exam, a common decision that confronts every instructor is whether the exam format should be closed book or open book. The present review synthesizes research examining the effect of administering closed-book or open-book assessments on long-term learning. Although the overall effect of assessment format on learning…

Since its introduction in 2017, NFER has been contracted by Ofqual to develop, deliver and analyse the results of the National Reference Test (NRT) in English and Maths. The NRT is administered annually and shows if student performance in English and maths at GCSE level has changed from year-to-year. This year, more than 13,000 Year 11 students…

While utilizing assessment data has been a pervasive practice in educational reform for decades, and teachers are expected to use assessment data to improve instruction, little is known about how the practice of requiring teachers to review test data affects their perception of effectiveness in addressing the learning gaps of student groups. This…

The recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) forced pre-university professionals to modify the educational system. This work aimed to determine the effects of pandemic situation on students' access to medical studies by comparing the performance of medical students. We evaluated the performance of students enrolled in a subject taught in the first…

Since its introduction in 2017, NFER has been contracted by Ofqual to develop, deliver and analyse the results of the National Reference Test (NRT) in English and maths. The NRT is administered annually and shows if student performance in English and maths at GCSE level has changed from year-to-year. This year, more than 13,000 Year 11 students…

Whole-school reforms have received widespread attention, but a critical limitation of the current literature is the lack of evidence around whether these extensive and costly interventions improve students' long-term outcomes after they leave reform schools. Leveraging Tennessee's statewide turnaround reforms, we use difference-in-differences…

The study of robotics has become a popular course among many educational programs, especially as a technical elective. A significant part of this course involves having the students learn how to program the movement of a robotic arm by controlling the velocity of its individual joint motors, a topic referred to as joint programming. They must…

This is one of the first studies of the mismatch between students' test scores and teachers' estimations of those scores in low- and middle-income countries. Prior studies in high-income countries have found strong correlations between these metrics. We leverage data on actual and estimated scores in math and language from India and Bangladesh and…

The MAP® Growth™ theory of action describes key features of MAP Growth and its position in a comprehensive assessment system. The basic premise of the theory of action is that all students learn when MAP Growth is situated in a comprehensive assessment system and used for its intended purposes to yield information about student learning and enable…

Since its introduction in 2017, NFER has been contracted by Ofqual to develop, deliver and analyse the results of the National Reference Test (NRT) in English and maths. The NRT is administered annually and shows if student performance in English and maths at GCSE level has changed from year-to-year. This year, around 13,000 Year 11 students from…

School boards have a central position in educational governance. They have to guarantee quality, monitor results and intervene if needed. In this article we report the results of a systematic literature review meant to identify what school boards do to contribute to educational quality. After five steps of literature selection and refinement, our…

Modest correlations between teacher-assigned grades and external assessments of academic achievement (r = 0.40-0.60) have led many educational stakeholders to deem grades subjective and unreliable. However, theoretical and methodological challenges, such as construct misalignment, data unavailability and sample unrepresentativeness, limit the…

As parents, communities, educators, and policymakers continue to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning in America, many have turned to recently released results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP measures what students know and what they can do in several tested subjects, including reading,…

In the study presented in this article, the aim is to further the understanding regarding the differences between pupils (aged 15-16) from schools with low or high socio-economic status (SES), regarding the amount and diversity of content knowledge in history that they have acquired by the end of compulsory schooling. Following a definition of…

Discussion of the effectiveness of distance learning as a means of delivering higher education programs at classical universities has been ongoing for the past decade. The article presents the findings of a study of changes in academic performance of university students, covering the period from fall 2018 to fall 2023. This period included a rapid…