This study examined the academic performance of Tech Prep students (referred to as participants) in comparison to non-Tech Prep students (referred to as non-participants) entering a two-year community college from sixteen different high schools in Stark County, Ohio. This study provided a quantitative analysis of students' academic experiences to…

This study evaluated the impact of a social skills curriculum on the social behaviors of students in two pre-kindergarten classrooms. Participating were 30 students in a program based at a university child study center. The average age of the participants was four years ten months. The income levels of the families varied from low social economic…

This study is an evaluation on whether middle-level mathematics teachers' participation in a week-long in-service course on middle-level mathematics concepts increases their understanding of this content. A secondary purpose of this study is an exploration of teacher perceptions before and after the institute via self-report surveys. Participants…

Background: This investigation is the second paper of a companion set reporting the outcomes of secondary schooling for young people who have been participating in the Manchester Language Study. Aims: To examine the school context of educational results at 16 years of age and to provide information on the adolescents' post-16 activities. Methods &…

Emerging research has revealed the impact of electronic media usage on student outcomes, such as satisfaction and reported learning efficacy. However, little is known of its impact on measurable knowledge acquisition. Results from this study showed that participation on discussion topics through Blackboard, an electronic discussion forum,…

Can we use the methods of Web usability testing to learn about library instruction? This article is among the first in the field trying to establish a link between usability and instruction. The author discusses useful insights that Web usability can bring to our pedagogy as well as to the efficiency of library instruction. The result of a Web…

This study investigated the possible connection between effective laboratory activities and student performance on lecture exams. In a traditional undergraduate organic chemistry course for non-science majors, students could predict the products of organic reactions, but struggled to provide reaction mechanisms for those same reactions, despite…

This chapter continues the focus on learning, but now in the context of schooling. How does a practice approach explain language learning in relationship to language teaching and language testing? In Practice Theory, a foreign language classroom is a site for pedagogical practices and what students learn is how to participate in those practices.…

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) has unsurpassable advantages over traditional testing. It has become the mainstream in large scale examinations in modern society. This paper gives a brief introduction to CAT including differences between traditional testing and CAT, the principles of CAT, psychometric theory and computer algorithms of CAT, the…

On Monday, the teacher assigns her class a list of 20 spelling words to learn. On Friday, she tests the students on how well they learned to spell these words. This "mastery measurement" is the traditional way of determining student progress. The next spelling mastery test will indicate mastery of the next week's 20 new words, a new skill.…

This report summarizes Austin ISD's 2007 student academic assessment results on the state test,TAKS, in reading/English language arts and mathematics to determine how many students performed in the following scale score ranges: less than 2000, between 2000 and 2099, between 2100 and 2199, and greater than or equal to 2200. Students must make a…

This paper presents FipsOrtho, a spell checker targeted at learners of French, and a corpus of learners' errors which has been gathered to test the system and to get a sample of specific language learners' errors. Spell checkers are a standard feature of many software products, however they are not designed for specific language learners' errors.…

Research protocols involving children often include psychological testing as part of an assessment battery. Inclusion of such testing raises the question of whether parents (or others) should be offered the individualized results of their children's psychological testing conducted for research purposes. The purpose of this article is to provide a…

We examined how academic background and course involvement differentially predicted students' performance on lecture- and text-based exam questions (N = 114; 34% men; 76% freshmen). Results showed that academic background and course involvement predicted performance on lecture-based questions and overall exam performance, whereas academic…

How do the best administrators find out how to improve their schools? They actively engage the people who work and study there. In "From Questions to Actions: Using Questionnaire Data for Continuous School Improvement," data experts Victoria L. Bernhardt and Bradley J. Geise explain how to collect and analyze data with an eye toward positive…