This study investigated the interaction between students' academic background (high school grades, standardized exams, and enrollment in advanced high school courses) and how much autonomy they reported having in high school science through labs and projects. The objective was to see if students who reported experiencing more or less self-directed projects and labs performed differently in college science when prior academic background was taken into account. To provide a more solid foundation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, College Science, Grades (Scholastic), High Schools, Standardized Tests, Scores,...
Given the implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, one might reasonably assume that the research literature on the effects of standardized testing would have been exposed, made widely familiar, and meticulously analyzed in the early 2000s. But just the opposite happened. As belief in the research literature's nonexistence has spread, efforts to reference it have become less thorough or casually dismissed. After all, why bother to search a literature you believe does not exist? As...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Federal Legislation, Literature, Standardized Tests, Educational Policy, Literature...
In this article, the author answers the question: "Why do Americans love to reform the public schools?" His answer has three parts. First, there is an old and persistent cultural strain in American history, derived from many sources, that seeks human perfection and sees education and schooling as essential to that perfectibility. That goal is high enough to guarantee that most people will not reach it. This means that numerous citizens at any point bemoan the quality of the public...
Topics: ERIC Archive, United States History, Standardized Tests, Academic Achievement, Educational Change,...
This article describes two very different projects undertaken in the same basic writing course: collaborative ethnography and ACT test prep. At first glance, it appears that the work on collaborative ethnography accomplished our goal of creating better, more self-conscious writers while the work on test prep achieved our goal of creating better written products: essays that pass the standardized test. However, that interpretation ignores the powerful interaction between these two elements of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Basic Writing, Standardized Tests, Ethnography, Context Effect, Collaborative...
The perceived problem of low mathematics achievement is a concern to education leaders at all levels of PK-16 education. Results from various research raise concerns about mathematics learning of U.S. middle school students. Education leaders search for interventions to address issues related to improving mathematics achievement. This article presents findings from a middle school mathematics intervention implemented to improve students' mathematics performance. The purpose of this empirical...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Education, Mathematics Achievement, Standardized Tests, Computer Assisted...
This study examined pre-college variables from an admission-office perspective and the ability of these variables to predict college grade point average (GPA) for students specially admitted into an academic support program for at-risk students. The research was conducted at a private, highly-selective, research university in the southwest United States. The primary determining factors for this special admission program are lower-than-average high school GPA and/or standardized test scores....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Research Universities, Grade Point Average, Standardized Tests, Academic Achievement,...
The perspectives of three rural middle school principals as they implement Georgia's A Plus Education Reform Act of 2000 were investigated in this study. A case study approach was used, employing both within case and cross case analyses. Three interviews were conducted with each of the three participants, resulting in a total of nine interviews. Five perspectives emerged from the data: (1) Evaluation of teacher effectiveness can be indicated only by the results of standardized tests, (2)...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Schedules, Middle Schools, Teacher Effectiveness, Supervision, Standardized...
This study is set in an elementary school located in a rural, Appalachian area and considers the reasons that teachers attribute to student success on state writing assessments as well as to what reasons they attribute their students' lack of success in moving beyond an average ranking. In considering these reasons, patterns emerge in the data that prove intriguing. For example, one pattern indicates that teachers link the lack of student success to aspects beyond their control. These aspects...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Family Life, Academic Achievement, Teaching Methods, Rural Schools, Elementary School...
This qualitative study examined the effects of a high-stakes, standardized test on teachers' instructional planning at a rural school. The research addressed this question: How do mandated curricular standards affect teachers' instructional planning and content selection? Ethnographic interviews (Creswell, 1998) examined four secondary teachers' perceptions of the effects of high-stakes standardized tests on their work. Case study methodology (Yin, 1994) guided the analysis of the data. Each...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Instructional Development, Rural Schools, State Legislation, Standardized Tests, High...
Each year, a large number of students begin college with aspirations of entering a health profession. High school teachers and guidance counselors as well as college admission counselors and prehealth advisors can assist students by providing current information regarding general entrance requirements to health professions programs. The purpose of this paper is to provide both counselors and teachers with information that will assist them in helping students plan programs of study in college...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Health Occupations, Admission Criteria, Physicians, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Physical...
While recent research has begun to explore how social studies teachers are responding to a standardized curriculum and its accompanying high-stakes tests, little is known about how teacher education programs are preparing their pre-service teachers for a world in which state curriculum standards and standardized testing often determine the content of the curriculum they will have to teach and in which the stakes are becoming increasingly higher. This study, conducted at a medium-sized...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Methods Courses, Teacher Education Programs,...
Modern teachers live in age of accountability, in which their success as educators is determined by individual and group mastery of specific standards demonstrated by standardized test performance. Even before No Child Left Behind (NCLB), standards and measures were used to determine if schools and students were successful. But NCLB has increased the pace, intensity, and high stakes of this trend. Gifted and talented students are significantly impacted by these local or state proficiency...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academically Gifted, Federal Legislation, Talent, Standardized Tests, Accountability,...
Knowing the great impact education has on a nation, the author decided to investigate the education systems in America and Japan. The aim of the study was to answer how educational systems or practices in Japan and America differ, and how Japanese practices might improve those of American educators and administrators. Besides many similarities, there are striking contrasts between American and Japanese views and visions of education, and they point to quite different directions and paths of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, National Curriculum, School Restructuring, Asian Culture, Standardized Tests,...
In thirty years since federal special education law, PL 94-142 (1975), there has been much debate about how to best identify and serve students with learning disabilities and those at-risk for learning difficulties. This debate continues even after the most recent reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) in 2004. Many classrooms, especially those in urban settings, have a number of students who are struggling with the core curriculum, particularly...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Learning Problems, Core Curriculum, Early Intervention, Learning Disabilities,...
The author of this article challenges a common assumption made by both critics and defenders of standardized-testing technology (or psychometry), namely that standardized tests "measure" something (culture, ability, etc.). It argues that psychometric practice cannot be classified as a form of measurement and instead is best understood as a marker of social value, an inherently political act. The chapter concludes by suggesting the significance of this argument for debates regarding...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Assessment, Social Values, Psychometrics, Standardized Tests,...
Randall Eberts explores the role of teachers unions in public education. He focuses particularly on how collective bargaining agreements shape the delivery of educational services, how unions affect both student achievement and the cost of providing quality education, and how they support educational reform efforts. Eberts's synthesis of the empirical research concludes that union bargaining raises teachers' compensation, improves their working conditions, and enhances their employment...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Standardized Tests, Collective Bargaining, Educational Quality, Unions, Educational...
This article is a follow-up to a larger study of 23 interns, drawn from a sample of approximately 100 elementary interns, and their year-long development. Teacher vulnerability was a dominating theme of that study, and several sources were identified and explored that mostly paralleled those discussed in the wider literature including the external forms connected to the bureaucratic nature of teachers' work, the busyness of teaching, administrator evaluation, and the rise of standardized...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mentors, Student Behavior, Administrator Evaluation, Standardized Tests, Teacher...
The divergence between a predominately White teacher education population and a diverse public school system poses this question: how do universities best prepare teacher candidates to teach children of racially and linguistically different backgrounds than their own? Teacher education programs have addressed this issue in a variety of ways, such as requiring multicultural coursework and/or requiring placements in urban schools. States, too, vary with respect to their requirements for...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, Public Schools, Education Courses, Multicultural Education, Teacher...
The administrators at Earlham College wanted teachers who entered its M.A.T. program to develop a "fire in the belly" to teach, and to have the ability to confront the realities of U. S. schools, including standardized testing (which seems at odds with passionate teaching and learning). Prior to entering the Earlham College M.A.T. program, candidates are asked to read Robert Fried's "The Passionate Teacher," along with Parker Palmer's "The Courage of Teach." These...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Masters Programs, Masters Degrees, Testing, Standardized Tests, Educational Change,...
These are challenging times for teachers. Mixed messages, conflicting demands, and increasing needs on all fronts surround them. Each day, teachers face increasing requirements and significant pressures on their daily practice from administrators and policymakers. It is hard to be, or remain, a teacher of quality committed to one's ideals. In this article, based upon data from interviews and observations drawn from a larger study, the author explores the experiences of one teacher as she...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Nontraditional Education, Standardized Tests, Science Teachers, Accountability, High...
This article argues that, with all of its language about reaching "100% proficiency for all students in twelve years" as an "ambitious, but achievable" goal, the current federal administration seems to be on the side of the children in its No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), but further investigation reveals that many of the practices mentioned in the act may cause more harm than good. The key component in NCLB is to establish an "accountable" education system in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Federal Legislation, Academic Achievement, Politics of Education, Accountability,...
With the recent proliferation of college service-learning programs and tutoring programs, college students have more opportunities to serve as tutors in elementary schools than ever before. A number of reports have appeared in the research literature describing tutoring programs that could serve as models for tutoring initiatives. Based on this research, the authors developed a service-learning tutoring program for their undergraduate prospective teachers designed to provide support for them in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary School Students, Program Effectiveness, Tutors, Elementary School...
This article offers a description of critical literacy practice and/as professional development as it evolved in a teacher inquiry group investigating critical literacy. The authors describe this professional development experience as an instance of critical literacy in practice. The entirety of this article is a collaborative product in which the authors begin their discussion of each dimension of critical literacy practice with a brief narrative written by an individual group member. Their...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Group Experience, Faculty Development, Professional Development, Teacher Educators,...
This article examines the standardized high-stakes testing in the wake of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) movement. It focuses on the political economy of the testing industry; that is, a look into the ownership, intent, and regulation of the private forces that produce, provide materials, prep sessions, and tutorials for and evaluate, report on, and profit from these tests. The author states that, by looking at and analyzing this powerful sector and the networks therein, it is much easier to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Ownership, Testing, Industry, Corporations, High Stakes Tests, Educational Change,...
In this article, the author examines the construction of standardized testing not only as a cultural product, but as an imperialistic product. She conducts both a postcolonial discussion of the critique of testing and examines the ways that children of color are represented in the content. Recognizing first that the increased use of tests is part of the corporate strategy that has been used all over the world for quite some time, she reminds everyone that standardized testing fulfills...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Racial Bias, Testing, Standardized Tests, Content Analysis, Student Diversity, Power...
This paper presents the results of a survey of 127 seniors in a diverse suburban high school to determine the impact of the subjects' perceptions of parent involvement on their levels of achievement as measured by the standardized national ACT test. Independent-samples t tests were then used to assess whether there were any differences in achievement as reported in national test scores among students with a perception of a high level of parent involvement, students with a perception of a low...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Public Schools, Parent Participation, Academic Achievement, Parent School...
This report highlights the evaluation of a parent education program conducted with an urban middle school in Southern California. The program called "PASSport to Success" enables parents to learn study skills and how to better teach their children how to study in school. This evaluative report conducted a pretest and a posttest on student academic performance as well as interviews with parents throughout the eight weeks. The program, administered to low-socioeconomic status parents...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Parent Education, Study Skills, Middle Schools, Pretests Posttests, Academic...
After over 40 years of education reform policies and strategies, America continues its need for systemic education reform. The greatest challenge confronting the nation remains within large urban metropolises where large numbers of minority students attend underfunded and low-performing schools with low standardized test scores and high dropout rates. African American children and youth constitute over 50% of all students in urban school systems. The social work profession has a long history of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, African American Children, Urban Schools, Educational Needs, Standardized Tests,...
According to a February 9, 2006 "New York Times" story headlined, "Panel Explores Standard Tests for Colleges," a new accountability era is descending upon a resistant higher education domain. The story describes the deliberations of a Bush-appointed commission considering imposition of standardized tests on college students. Ten days earlier, the "Boston Globe" reported that Massachusetts community colleges have a three-year graduation rate of 16 percent. Last...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Colleges, Graduation Rate, Outcomes of Education, Standardized Tests, Accountability,...
This summer, "Instructor's" Editor in Chief, Bernadette Grey, traveled to Washington, D.C., for an exclusive one-on-one meeting with the U.S. Department of Education's high-profile leader, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Appointed by President Bush, Spellings is responsible for the overall direction, supervision, and coordination of activities and functions as the Chief Operating Officer for the entire Department. Spellings, who replaced the controversial Rod Paige earlier...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Merit Pay, Office Occupations, Federal Legislation, Academic Achievement, Public...
Educators are currently exploring the expanded use of a variety of new assessment tools in the classroom in response to pressures to enhance student learning. The present study examined quick writes as a tool in the context of third-grade classroom assessment. Third-grade teachers administered the same brief writing probe before and after students took a field trip to a wetlands. Analyses suggested that student responses did change to reflect learning gained on the trip. Post-trip responses...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Evaluation, Grade 3, Field Trips, Timed Tests, Writing (Composition),...
With the mandate of "No Child Left Behind," high-stakes achievement testing is firmly in place in every state. The few studies that have explored the effectiveness of high-stakes testing using NAEP scores have yielded mixed results. This study considered state demographic characteristics for each NAEP testing period in reading, writing, mathematics, and science from 1992 through 2002, in an effort to examine the relation of high-stakes testing policies to achievement and changes in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Federal Legislation, Academic Achievement, High Stakes Tests, Standardized Tests,...
Calls for accountability in America's schools have created increased responsibilities for educational leaders. In this article, we describe and discuss a study of elementary, middle, and high school principals' perceptions of the state-wide educational accountability program in North Carolina. The respondents indicated that the state's accountability program has had its greatest impact on how they monitored student achievement, aligned the curriculum to the testing program, provided student...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Testing Programs, Sanctions, School Safety, Federal Legislation, Educational...
This study examined the relationship between high-stakes testing pressure and student achievement across 25 states. Standardized portfolios were created for each study state. Each portfolio contained a range of documents that told the "story" of accountability implementation and impact in that state. Using the "law of comparative judgments," over 300 graduate-level education students reviewed one pair of portfolios and made independent evaluations as to which of the two...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Portfolios (Background Materials), Reading Achievement, Academic Achievement, High...
This study investigated the impact of a Professional Development School (PDS) on student learning by comparing student achievement in a PDS and a control school. Student achievement data were collected from an elementary PDS and a matched control school over a 6-year period. The results indicate that the PDS moved more students up to mastery level and more students out of intervention level on state standardized tests than the control school. PDS development descriptions and standards ratings...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Professional Development Schools, Standardized Tests, Academic Achievement,...
This longitudinal study followed students (n = 265) from kindergarten through seventh grade and examined early social and academic predictors of school performance at two normative school transitions. Questions addressed include: (a) are there changes in students' school performance over time, especially at school transition points; (b) are changes in school performance dependent on sociodemographic factors; and, (c) does early social and academic competence predict stability or change in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Standardized Tests, Academic Achievement, Interpersonal Competence, Early Experience,...
School reform efforts across the US have focused on creating systems in which all students are expected to achieve to high standards. To ensure that students reach those standards and to document what students know and can do, schools collect assessment information on students' academic achievement. More information is needed, however, to find out when such assessments are appropriate for English learners and can provide meaningful information about what such learners know and can do. We...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Restructuring, Standardized Tests, Academic Achievement, Second Language...
Throughout much of the world, boys continue to outscore girls on standardized mathematics tests. For example, in most of the 57 countries that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006, boys' performance was significantly higher than girls on the mathematics scale. This fact alone can harm girls' opportunities for competitive scholarships and entry into top colleges, attitudes toward the subject matter and themselves, and participation in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Intervention, Females, Standardized Tests, Mathematics Tests, Equal Education,...
The self-reported study and learning strategies used by university students reporting a significant history of reading difficulties (HRD; N = 29) were compared to those of university students who reported no history of reading difficulties (NRD; N = 38). All participants were given a battery of standardized tests and completed a questionnaire that addressed demographic information; reading, spelling and educational experiences; and learning and study strategies. Significantly more HRD than NRD...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Reading Difficulties, Standardized Tests, Learning Strategies, Educational...
The authors argue that the affective is the most-overlooked of the three domains identified by Bloom & Krathwohl's committees. Research suggest the affective domain is the gateway to learning, yet the cognitive and psychomotor domains take precedence. Some complexities of the affective domain are neglected. They further suggest that many college course outlines and lesson plans with affective outcomes fail to indicate how these will be taught and evaluated. They offer reasons, both...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Design, Affective Behavior, College Faculty, Instructional Design,...
Understanding student performance in Algebra I is important because this course serves as the gateway to advanced coursework in mathematics and science through the remainder of high school and into postsecondary education. In the current study, we analyzed secondary data to evaluate the relationship between selected indicators of mathematics and the Algebra I performance of academically able and gifted learners who participated in above-level talent search testing. We used structural equation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Homework, Academically Gifted, Structural Equation Models, Algebra, Individualized...
The current study investigated the gender differences of gifted adolescents' math/verbal self-concept and math/verbal ability by examining the Internal/External Frame of Reference Model (I/E model; Marsh, 1986). The sample consisted of 181 gifted adolescents, ranging in age from 12 to 16 years old. Gifted adolescents' math/verbal ability was measured using their SAT/ACT scores, and math/verbal self-concepts were measured by the Mathematics and Verbal subscales of the Self Description...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academically Gifted, Self Concept, Adolescents, Path Analysis, Verbal Ability, Gender...
The "No Child Left Behind" legislation requires states to classify schools based on students meeting the state's academic standards. A combination of factors, including scores on state specific tests and nationally normed tests, can result in a school being awarded a low classification or a high classification. In the authors' state, schools in the low classification are labeled "underperforming," and schools that are persistently classified as underperforming can eventually...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Effectiveness, Federal Legislation, Standardized Tests, Academic Achievement,...
Teacher preparation programs have continued to see the ever-increasing control of teacher candidates by policymakers. To control means to regulate. The problem, according to these authors, is that there are currently at least three regulating measurement and assessment obstacles faced by teacher candidates in teacher preparation programs. The first obstacle is being admitted into a teacher preparation program. High school grades, standardized test data, letters of recommendation, and other...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Preservice Teacher Education, Schools of Education, Standardized Tests, Program...
Two major obstacles to using problem-based learning methods with writing in elementary school classrooms are the time it takes to design the learning environment and the time required for students to interact at their own pace with ill-structured problems used to spur student writing. This study examined whether game elements could be used along with Problem Based Learning (PBL) in a digital learning environment to improve student writing. Results from this study included statistically...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Problem Based Learning, Educational Environment, Teaching Methods, Elementary School...
Institutions of higher learning serve as a portal, through which opportunities for life, and potential for social evolution are intrinsically bound. The decision of who is allowed to pass through this portal is not only a defining moment for the individual student, but also a significant portent towards the fulfillment of social justice on which this nation was founded. At the front lines of this issue are admission officers, who through their leadership have the power to advocate for equal...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Social Justice, Equal Education, Higher Education, Construct Validity, Cultural...
Rather than regard frequent and subjective testing as a negative, it should prove more beneficial for educators to offer students an opportunity to acquire life skills that will carry them through any test-taking situation. Offering students the skills necessary to succeed not only in the classroom but also through testing is where accountability begins. In this article, the author proposes attaining accountability both in the classroom and on standardized assessments. She stresses that nothing...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Testing, Accountability, Teaching Experience, Educational Objectives,...
Issues regarding the identification of gifted students have perplexed the field almost since its inception. How one identifies gifted students has tremendous ramifications for a gifted education program's size, curriculum, instructional methods, and administration. Little is known, however, regarding educator beliefs regarding gifted identification methods. The current national study surveyed 900 public school educators regarding which identification methods they supported. The educators...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academically Gifted, Standardized Tests, Identification, Teaching Methods, Teacher...
In this article, the author argues that the computer/artificial intelligence (AI) metaphor dominates current thinking about the operation of the mind among educators and the public, and that the metaphor limits one's understanding of how the mind really works to detrimental effect. In particular, the author posits that ideas about literacy are conceptually determined by this metaphor and that the result is an expectation that students should process literacy in the same way that a computer...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Figurative Language, Standardized Tests, Computers, Artificial Intelligence,...
A hallmark of school library media best practice is for the library media center to be open and accessible to patron use before, during, and after the school day and throughout the entire school year. Anecdotal evidence and informal discussion among school library media specialists indicate that library media facilities are sometimes used for activities unrelated to the mission of the school library media program in the school. These activities may close the library media center to regular...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Poverty, Standardized Tests, School Libraries, Media Specialists, Library Services,...