IQs increased by about 30 points in the 20th century. Part of this increase may have been the result of increased standardized testing because testing improves the skills on which students are tested. But although these practices may increase general intelligence, they may impede the development of creativity and wisdom. As a result, our society…

Research shows that assuming a test scale is equal-interval can be problematic, especially when the assessment is being used to achieve a policy aim like evaluating growth over time. However, little research considers whether teacher value added is sensitive to the underlying test scale, and in particular whether treating an ordinal scale as…

Worldwide private tutoring is documented extensively, but its impact is unclear. I estimate the impact of tutoring on performance to assess the degree to which tutoring is a vehicle of educational stratification in Sri Lanka. I find that on average, five months of tutoring has no impact on Year 5 students' exam scores. I produce suggestive…

The study examined whether an academic, social, or both an academic and social focus might relate with achievement goals and academic achievement. Participants were 412 urban elementary school students. Results suggest that students with an academic focus toward school have more mastery-approach and less mastery-avoid achievement goals. Academic…

This article, based on a keynote presentation given at a conference in Tasmania, examines the notion of "attainment" and argues that a narrow focus on standardised test scores is highly problematic for those concerned with social justice. Using examples from the Freedom to Learn Project, this article presents two case studies of schools…

This quantitative study evaluated how two consecutive years of math Response to Intervention (RtI) demonstrated its effectiveness on 995 fifth grade students within the School District A (SDA) on Smarter Balanced (SB) assessments. Research questions: "What is the relationship between the duration of math RtI implementation and math…

This study, Students' Perceptions of Effective Classroom Learning Environments and their Impact on Pass or Fail on the Standardized State Assessment, was conducted to research ninth-grade students' perceptions of effective classroom learning environments as they impact their pass or fail levels on the standardized state assessment in Algebra I.…

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) mathematics items measure critical thinking, mathematical reasoning, and the ability to apply skills and knowledge to real-world problems. Students are asked to solve problems involving the key knowledge and skills for their grade level as identified by the Common Core…

Low motivation to perform well on a test is a potentially problematic source of construct-irrelevant variance (Messick, 1980), especially when there are low or no stakes attached to performance. That is, interpretations of test scores as indicators of students' knowledge and skills may be compromised if those students do not put forth the effort…

Standardized tests have a long history of being the go-to measure of student reading achievement, teacher accomplishment, and school accountability. Given this habit of history, it is predictable that a single standardized reading test score is often considered the indicator of student reading growth and achievement. Yet standardized reading tests…

In the context of educational globalization and increasing dominance of supranational organizations in educational governance, least developed countries (LDCs) have faced a new level of tension about whether their educational policies should follow the global educational models or seek solutions of their multifarious problems by promoting local…

The purpose of this study was to determine if reading a standardized tests aloud is an effective accommodation to address impairment associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as demonstrated by a differential boost to those with ADHD relative to same aged typically developing peers and if the size of the differential boost…

This article begins with a historical exploration of the U.S.'s implementations and usages of K-12 standardized testing, including efforts at and failures to promote educational equity. Then, centering teachers' voices, the authors use a dialogic narrative format to put two long-time friends and educators in conversation with one another and their…

More equitable pathways to university have been recently implemented in Chile. An alternative entrance pathway program was launched in 2009 at a Santiago-based university. This study aimed to describe the personal and academic journeys of the first three cohorts of students under this scheme, with a focus on the qualitative features that…

Geographic skills area major competency that must be developed through spatial thinking. This paper describes whether learning material questions about Geographic Information System (GIS) in geography textbooks contains components of spatial thinking: concepts of space, use of representation tools, and reasoning processes. This study uses a…