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In recent years, the society requires a flexible response of the dental society to deal with changes in disease structure in the super-aging society in Japan. Regarding quality of dental care, we need to ensure quality of clinical environment, dental professionals and the system. As globalization expands, the health care professionals move to another country to work. In the European Union(EU), the quality assurance system for the graduated European dentist through the activities in undergraduate education has been established and a similar approach is ongoing in the region of the Association of South-East Asian Nations. After the registration, the continuing professional development (CPD) system takes a role on quality assurance for dentist. The DentCPD was an approach to create a standard for CPD in the EU. Regarding the quality assurance system in Japanese dentistry, there were systematic approaches, establishing the model core curriculum in dental education, the common achievement test. Besides them, the quality assurance system for dentist has not been established except the voluntary life-long learning program of the Japan Dental Association. Predicting changes of the society to have quality control for dental professionals, we should prepare the system like the CPD system which matches level of the global standard. Keywords: Dental education, Quality assurance, Continuing professional development (CPD)

Previous research repeatedly found basic numerical abilities (e.g., magnitude understanding, arithmetic fact knowledge, etc.) to predict young students' current and later arithmetic achievement as assessed by achievement tests – even when controlling for the influence of domain-general abilities (e.g., intelligence, working memory). However, to the best of our knowledge, previous studies hardly addressed this issue in secondary school students. Additionally, they primarily assessed basic numerical abilities in a between-task approach (i.e., using different tasks for different abilities). Finally, their relevance for real-life academic outcomes such as mathematics grades has only rarely been investigated. The present study therefore pursued an approach using one and the same task (i.e., a within-task approach) to reduce confounding effects driven by between-task differences. In particular, we evaluated the relevance of i) number magnitude understanding, ii) arithmetic fact knowledge, and iii) conceptual and procedural knowledge for the mathematics grades of 81 students aged between ten and thirteen (i.e., in Grades 5 and 6) employing the number bisection task. Results indicated that number magnitude understanding, arithmetic fact knowledge, and conceptual and procedural knowledge contributed to explaining mathematics grades even when controlling for domain-general cognitive abilities. Methodological and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Participation in sport and physical activity can improve academic outcomes and has been identified as a potential mechanism for addressing educational disadvantage and ‘closing the gap’ in Australian Indigenous communities. To explore this possibility in relation to sport and lifestyle we performed a cluster analysis on data from the Footprints in Time study (also known as the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children), using data from Waves 3–6 (2010–2013, ages 5–9 years) of this cohort study. Cluster inputs were organised according to not only sports participation, but also screen time, sleep duration and unhealthy food intake, as reported in parent surveys. Associations between lifestyle cluster membership and academic outcomes from standardised tests from 2014-5 (Progressive Achievement Tests [PATs] for Maths and Reading, and National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN]) were examined using linear models. Analyses were adjusted for age, sex, remoteness and parental education. Three clusters were identified: Low Sport (36% of sample), characterised by low sports participation and low sleep duration; Junk Food Screenies (21% of sample), with high screen time and high intake of unhealthy foods; and High Sport (43% of sample), showing high sports participation and low screen time. Cluster membership was associated with academic performance for NAPLAN Literacy and Numeracy, and for PAT Maths. The High Sport cluster consistently performed better on these tests, with effect sizes (standardised mean differences) ranging from 0.10 to 0.38. We discuss the ecological dynamics potentially contributing to lifestyle cluster membership and ways in which policy can support healthier High Sport lifestyles associated with better academic performance., Highlights • Sport holds cultural significance in Indigenous communities. • Few data relating to sport and lifestyle outcomes within these communities have been examined. • Sport participation varies among lifestyle clusters: Low Sport (36%), Junk Food Screenies (21%), High Sport (43%). • The High Sport cluster performed consistently better on literacy and numeracy tests. • Ecological Systems Theory is used to consider ways to improve sport participation, lifestyles and education outcomes.

Although formative assessment is regarded as a promising way to improve teaching and learning, there is considerable need for research on precisely how it influences student learning. In this study we developed and implemented a formative assessment intervention for mathematics instruction and investigated whether it had effects on students' interest and achievement directly and via students' perception of the usefulness of the feedback and their self-efficacy. We conducted a cluster randomized field trial with pretest and posttest. The 26 participating classes were randomly assigned to a control group or the intervention group. Results of path analyses indicate that feedback was perceived as more useful in the formative assessment condition, self-efficacy was greater, and interest tended to increase; learning progress did not differ between the groups. The assumed indirect effects were partly confirmed: formative assessment showed an indirect effect on interest via its perceived usefulness. (DIPF/Orig.)

This chapter discusses both historical perspectives and more current advances within the areas of aptitude and achievement testing. Use of aptitude tests in college admissions, vocational screening, and military enlistment procedures are discussed, including how the political and educational climate has adopted these measures to serve purposes for which the tests may not have been originally developed, and how this impacts selection procedures. Achievement testing is then reviewed, including review of current versions of achievement tests and how these updated versions relate to prior versions, and current research. This section also discusses the interplay between achievement tests and the developmental components of skills such as reading and math, and some advances in this field. The chapter concludes with a discussion on how this information may be applied in a clinically practical and relevant manner.

This paper presents evidence from the first three years of a randomized controlled trial of a government-administered pilot teacher performance pay program in Punjab, Pakistan. The program offers yearly cash bonuses to teachers in a sample of public primary schools with the lowest mean student exam scores in the province. Bonuses are linked to three school-level indicators: the gain in student exam scores, the gain in school enrollment, and the level of student exam participation. Bonus receipt and size are also randomly assigned across schools according to whether or not the teacher is the school?s head. On average, the program increases school enrollment by 4.1 percent and student exam participation rates by 3.4 percentage points, both in the third year. The analysis does not find that the program increases student exam scores in any year. Mean impacts are similar across program variants. The positive mean impact on school enrollment is mainly seen in urban schools and the positive mean impact on student exam participation rates is only seen in rural schools.

[EN] Over the few years, computer based language testing has become prevailing worldwide. The number of institutions the use computers as the main means of delivery has increased dramatically. Many students face each day tests for well-known high-stakes decisions which imply the knowledge and ability to use technology to provide evidence of language mastery. However, this situation is not the same everywhere. While countries like the United States or the United Kingdom are spearheads of this tendency, others like Spain, lag way behind. This paper addresses the needs of use of computer based language testing in the new Spanish educational system. To do so, this paper introduces the current situation in Spain, then proceeds to do a SWOT analysis emphasizing the lacks and opportunities for language based assessments and concludes by stating the positive issues involving them., The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for funding the research project (with co-finance by ERDF) within the framework of the National R + D + I (2011-2014) "Guidance, proposals and teaching for English section in the entrance examination to the University" (Reference FFI2011-22442). The researchers would also thank the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports because without the grant for the Senior Researchers Mobility this paper would probably have not been possible.

Theories and findings on test anxiety are reviewed herein. Test anxiety has been researched extensively over the past 60 years. Findings show that test anxiety (1) comprises multiple affective, cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components; (2) is frequently experienced by students; (3) can negatively impact performance on complex and difficult tasks; and (4) is negatively related to students' academic achievement. Individual failure expectancies, overly high perceived importance of achievement, excessively high task demands, competitive educational structures, normative grading, and high-stakes testing contribute to test anxiety arousal. Psychotherapy and learning environments that strengthen students' competencies and self-confidence can alleviate test anxiety.

This paper summarizes the results of using two Excel-based simulations run on a cost accounting course to instruct about the contribution margin. Students’ learning has been assessed using achievement tests and analyzing traces. Conclusions of the research are: students stayed active, focused their work on the key actions, and worked where the instructor wanted them to work; there was knowledge acquisition since the tests provide evidence of learning; and the activity was well-accepted by the students.

Contemporary models of self-regulated learning emphasize the role of distal motivational factors for student's achievement, on the one side, and the proximal role of metacognitive monitoring and control for learning and test outcomes, on the other side. In the present study, two larger samples of elementary school children (9- and 11-year-olds) were included and their mastery-oriented motivation, metacognitive monitoring and control skills were integrated into structural equation models testing and comparing the relative impact of these different constituents for self-regulated learning. For one, results indicate that the factorial structure of monitoring, control and mastery motivation was invariant across the two age groups. Of specific interest was the finding that there were age-dependent structural links between monitoring, control, and test performance (closer links in the older compared to the younger children), with high confidence yielding a direct and positive effect on test performance and a direct and negative effect on adequate control behavior in the achievement test. Mastery-oriented motivation was not found to be substantially associated with monitoring (confidence), control (detection and correction of errors), or test performance underlining the importance of proximal, metacognitive factors for test performance in elementary school children.

Cognitive psychology has an important impact on ability and achievement testing because many of the item types on educational tests have been studied as cognitive tasks. In this article, a system of designing tests from the cognitive perspective is described. Further, appropriate statistical models for estimating the effects of specific variables on psychometric properties are also described. Examples are presented from two different tests to show how the properties of items are predicted from the cognitive variables. The estimated effect parameters for the cognitive variables may be useful for item banking and test equating if the model has sufficient predictive power.

Even though written expression is at the heart of the historical process, multiple-choice tests dominate achievement testing. Starting with studies in the 1920s and 1930s, Wineburg and Fogo explore what happened in California – where history/social science standards were first adopted – once essays gave way to quizzes. Following the comparison of the framework's goals with sample questions that push students to do little more than recognize and associate, the authors conclude that standardized multiple-choice testing endures for reasons of economy and efficiency, but not to further student learning – which would benefit from a restored emphasis on analytical writing skills.

The number of test questions correctly answered can seldom be interpreted in an absolute sense. Norms – the distribution of scores of some well-defined group of examinees, such as a representative national sample of students – provide a meaningful context for interpreting test scores. Even criterion-referenced score interpretations, often thought to make no use of norms, are based on underlying normative judgments about what constitutes adequate performance. Batteries of standardized tests that are norm referenced can not only provide information on students' educational development but also estimate relative strengths and weaknesses in different content areas. Such comparisons are almost impossible without norms.

This article examines the use of student achievement test scores in test-based accountability systems that hold schools or teachers accountable for student performance. A variety of approaches have been used to create aggregate student achievement measures, or accountability indices. These range from simple status-based or cohort-to-cohort average scores to complex, multivariate value-added models. Each approach has strengths and limitations, and they vary in the extent to which they support inferences about educators' effectiveness. Moreover, all of these methods are subject to problems stemming from the use of achievement test scores as outcome measures.

In some research situations, the realization of a randomized experiment is practically impossible or ethically not justifiable. For example, in educational research, a reading training program should be given to children who have lower scores in a reading achievement test instead of giving the training program to those children who do not need it. When nonrandom, but strictly cutoff-based assignment to conditions is given, regression discontinuity designs allow for an unbiased estimation of treatment effects.

The association between fluid intelligence and inter-individual differences was investigated using multilevel growth curve modeling applied to data measuring intra-individual improvement on math achievement tests. A sample of 166 students (88 boys and 78 girls), ranging in age from 11 to 14 (M=12.3, SD=0.64), was tested. These individuals took four math achievement tests, which were vertically equated via Item Response Theory, at the beginning and end of the seventh and eighth grade. The cognitive abilities studied were Numerical Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Spatial Reasoning (as measured by the Differential Reasoning Test). The general cognitive factor was significantly associated with the parameters of initial level (intercept) and rate of change (slope). A high level of intelligence was associated with higher initial scores, as well as a steeper rise in math scores across the two years., Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq), Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Ministério da Ciência, da Tecnologia e do Ensino Superior

Achievement tests are increasingly being used to hold schools and individual educators accountable. This has been a cornerstone of policy in the US and England for years and is rapidly becoming a focus of reform in many nations. One consequence of the pressure to raise scores on specific tests has been score inflation. This inflation is highly variable, but in some cases has been large and rapid. This article provides some examples of the problem and a framework for understanding how inflation comes about. It explains why traditional validation is insufficient to validate gains under high-stakes conditions and offers suggestions for research, evaluation, and test design.

In the present article, we examine the hypothesis that high-school students' motivation to engage in cognitive endeavors (i.e., their need for cognition; NFC) is positively related to their dispositional self-control capacity. Furthermore, we test the prediction that the relation between NFC and school achievement is mediated by self-control capacity. A questionnaire study with grade ten high-school students (N = 604) revealed the expected relations between NFC, self-control capacity, and school achievement. Sobel tests showed that self-control capacity mediated the relation between NFC and school grades as well as grade retention.

Publisher Summary This chapter examines current and recurrent issues in test anxiety theory. Tests and evaluative situations have emerged as a potent class of stressors in Western society, which bases many important decisions relating to an individual's status in school, college, and work on tests and other assessment devices. Test anxiety is frequently cited among the pivotal factors at play in determining a wide array of unfavorable outcomes for students, including poor cognitive performance, scholastic underachievement, psychological distress, and ill health. In addition to taking its toll in human suffering and impaired test performance, test anxiety may also jeopardize assessment validity in the cognitive domain and constitute a major source of construct-irrelevant systematic variance in test scores (test bias). To the extent that anxiety influences performance in some substantial way, some examinees perform worse than their ability or achievement would otherwise allow. A student's performance on a classroom exam may be as much an indicator of the students' ability to cope with high levels of evaluative stress and anxiety in the classroom as a reflection of the ability or achievement the exam aims at measuring. Thus, the measurement of any particular ability or proficiency is confounded with anxiety.

This chapter examines psychometric modeling approaches to vertically scaled educational assessments. We discuss historical approaches, and we examine model assumptions widely used in current practice. We identify a weakness in existing approaches that leaves users overly vulnerable to implausible (e.g., disordinal) grade-by-grade results, and we develop and demonstrate the general feasibility of an alternative approach grounded in hierarchial modeling. The approach we introduce and explore is a hierarchical multi-group item response theory model that allows explicit estimation of the functional form of the grade-to-grade growth patterns. The modeling framework we introduce is very general and incorporates widely used item response theory approaches to vertical scaling as special cases. We explore properties of the model and the estimation algorithms using simulated and real data from achievement tests.

Publisher Summary Approximately 3–6% of school-age children are estimated to have mathematics difficulties. There are many more children in regular school classrooms who struggle with mathematics, but whose performance is not considered sufficiently poor to be classified as meriting a specific disability in mathematics. Specific mathematic learning disability (MLD) is defined in psychiatric and educational venues. One issue that complicates the study of the cognitive underpinnings of mathematics proficiency is how mathematic abilities are assessed. Regardless of whether preschool, school-age, or adolescent students are studied, mathematic proficiencies can be measured by traditional, individually administered standardized achievement tests. There may be important differences in the identified cognitive substrates dependent on the measurement method. The chapter provides diverse evidences relating WM and various mathematic skills, which were measured by different methods. Cognitive limitations in childhood do lead to difficulties in learning basic arithmetic and mathematic skills, and these cognitive limitations need to be pinpointed to help children in their learning. Mathematic skills are supported by verbal and visual-spatial STM resources, the reliance on which may vary depending on age and experience. To identify children at risk of developing mathematic difficulties, combination of subject specific tasks and general WM tasks can be used. A deeper understanding of the cognitive limitations will help one to develop teaching strategies to overcome or circumvent these difficulties.

Publisher Summary This chapter reveals a methodology of assessing basic academic skills focused on problem solving that has been designed to evaluate a student's skills and performance that is linked to intervention development and that can be used dynamically to show responsiveness to instructional intervention. It introduces the reader to the concepts of curriculum-based assessment (CBA) and describes how these strategies are being used in the assessment of basic skill development of elementary students. CBA has increasingly become a staple of the assessment process for students referred in schools for academic skills problems. The methodology draws on the foundations of behavioral assessment methodology and emphasizes measures that are frequent, repeatable, direct, and focused on the development and evaluation of instructional intervention. Use of graphic analysis is critical to interpretation. The data are useful for multiple purposes of assessment, including screening, eligibility determination, instructional development, and program evaluation. Although the measures are not designed to replace the use of published, norm-referenced achievement tests, the purposes of CBA meet the important philosophical function of being closely linked to intervention.

Publisher Summary This chapter throws the attention to determine a specific learning disability by using the Woodcock–Johnson III tests of achievement with the WISC-III and WAIS-III. Most psychological assessments completed in school systems are intended to substantiate learning difficulties evidenced in the classroom. Selection of the ability and achievement scales is an important decision for psychologists. The discrepancy is meaningless unless scores on a variety of intelligence and achievement tests are relatively equivalent and stable across time. The discrepancy model for determining a specific learning disability is fraught with debate. Nonetheless, a best-practices model dictates that grade-level differences should not be utilized for determining a learning disability because of the inherent variability across age groupings. Therefore, when assessment professionals choose not to use the WJ III COG together with the WJ III ACH, but instead select a different measure of cognitive functioning to combine with the WJ III ACH, utilization of a regression formula that corrects for regression to the mean and computes predicted achievement scores, is the most statistically sound practice. Although there is a paucity of data for math disorders, there is considerable empirically supported data regarding reading deficits. Finally, an evaluation of these critical competencies is essential for guiding subsequent intervention procedures.

This chapter discusses assessment of the academic performance of children from diverse backgrounds. The chapter describes the problems with current interpretation and use of results of standardized achievement tests when applied to children from culturally diverse backgrounds, identifies some innovative procedures, and considers their usefulness with the population of students who traditionally have not been well-served by their educational system. The chapter presents an argument against the use and interpretations of standardized tests for children of low-income, race/ethnic, and language-minority backgrounds and proposes a reconsideration for the purpose of assessment—a reconsideration that places emphasis on the identification of learner's strengths and emerging academic potentials. Standardized achievement tests have been used to make decisions on tracking, grade retention, and placement in special education programs. The fact that a disproportionate number of children with these demographic characteristics are placed in low-track classes and show higher dropout and grade retention rates than their more affluent, white, English-speaking peers has strengthened the distrust of standardized tests for this population of students. A bio-cultural perspective of academic achievement that includes the assessment of academic potential and alternative assessments is proposed in the chapter.

Publisher Summary This chapter deals with the Pygmalion effect in children. It presents case studies to highlight the signs and symptoms of this effect, highlighting the uniformity of effects observed across studies. It also demonstrates the method of measuring teacher expectations and explores the question of whether or not the challenge level and teachers' statements impact children's performance. Some of these methods are more direct while some are less direct. More direct procedures include asking teachers to make global overall assessments of the expectations they hold for each of the children in their class. Somewhat less global, more specific, estimates can be obtained from teachers by asking, for each of their students, the grade level at which they will be reading at the end of the year, or the percentile level they will achieve on any one of a number of standardized achievement tests. Finally, the chapter examines what happens when greater intellectual gains are expected of children by adults, and the reason this works to result in higher student achievement.

Gender differences in the academic subjects of mathematics and science persist despite over 20 years of educational research on the issue. Males and females perform differently on measures of achievement in mathematics and science depending on the type of test, its content, and the population of students being considered. Males score better than females on traditional multiple choice achievement tests and the discrepancy grows as the students get older. Females constitute diminishing proportions of the students in mathematics and science classes when these subjects become elective in secondary school. Females and males have different attitudes toward mathematics and science, which may grow out of their distinct classroom experiences. Recently feminist scholars have used this data to assert that the subject matter and its pedagogy must change to make them more appealing to females. Cognitive scientists have analyzed students' solution strategies finding that males and females sometimes solve problems differently. New forms of curriculum and instruction implemented in the 1980s and 1990s have not ameliorated gender differences. This area continues to be of great interest to educational researchers.

This article describes the meaning and significance of standardization in testing, including both paper-and-pencil and computer-based tests. Issues discussed include instructions to test takers, accommodation or test modification for persons with disabilities, taking a test in a second language, test security, cheating, and test preparation (coaching). Test scoring, norms, performance standards, test equating, and calibration are treated briefly. Principles of computer-based adaptive testing are discussed.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses certain general issues concerning the use of ability and achievement measures along with a comprehensive review of the specific studies on the WISC-III and achievement tests. The reader, in this context, is introduced to the research base from which decisions can be made. It is very practical and useful for clinicians. To this end, are provided tables, charts as well as case study examples, providing suitable guidelines for understanding difficult concepts. The chapter also demonstrates the use of tables along with furnished opportunities for practicing several essential skills. The achievement measure usually reflects operationalization of probability. Different variables are difficult to tease out one from the other. Psychologists need to formulate and test hypotheses of variables' influencing the achievement outcomes in each instance.

Publisher Summary This chapter explores the procedures used for the identification of children with academic problems, the description of their strengths and weaknesses. A good deal of the recent interest can be traced back to criticism of current intelligence tests. Learning potential tests should measure the capacity to adapt to new situations by making use of past experiences. In the initial studies, the learning potential tests measured mostly domain general processes such as figural, reasoning concept formation, number series, and paired associate learning. Learning potential programs simulating the teaching of two different beginning reading methods would result in differential learning. The learning potential program evaluates the ability of kindergarten children to perform a phonemic awareness task. The phonemic awareness test determines what specific knowledge and which skills are the prerequisites of decoding and word recognition. Practice procedures in the working memory tasks were intended to reduce inefficient strategies. In contrast with the traditional school achievement tests, learning potential assessment, with domain-specific tasks research, is only at the beginning of what will become a new research tradition accompanied by the development of new instruments for school practice.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the inter-relationship of learning, achievement, and assessment in the world of education. It is a dynamic time for those involved in education. Theories of learning are rapidly changing and influencing conceptions of appropriate instruction. To understand the connectivity among learning, achievement, and assessment, various questions need to be answered. “What is the purpose of education?”, “What is learning?”, “What do we mean by assessment?”, and “Are learning and achievement the same thing?”. It is equally worthwhile to re-examine the issue of the purpose of assessments. The chapter provides some background and perspectives on these questions. It addresses three constructs in flux: learning, achievement, and assessment. The chapter is directed toward five objectives. First, a distinction is drawn between learning and achievement. Second, a conceptual definition of assessment is developed. Third, a new conceptualization of assessment is provided in which assessment is viewed as a special case of research design. Fourth, an organizing framework for assessment is provided. This framework attempts to illustrate the practical relationships between learning, achievement, and assessment. Finally, suggestions for the future interplay between learning, achievement, and assessment are provided.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the role of standardized achievement tests in grades K-12. Few topics in education have been surrounded by controversy to the extent standardized achievement tests have. In this chapter, these controversial aspects of standardized tests are addressed. The focus of the chapter is the appropriate use and interpretation of standardized test scores. It emphasizes on achievement tests in grades K-12. It begins with a consideration of the differences in the testing situations in elementary versus secondary schools. This is followed by the interpretation and use of standardized test scores. The content of the chapter clearly indicates that there are more similarities than differences here across all grade levels. It discusses the unique challenges of secondary school testing because external testing at the secondary level presents a series of unique problems, particularly when compared to testing at the elementary level. Finally, the chapter concludes that standardized achievement tests must be considered a means to an end and not an end in themselves. These tests function best and most appropriately to “raise flags.” They serve best to draw the attention of faculty to areas of need within a student or group of students.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes concomitants of growth in mathematics achievement during the population a school year. The concepts employed in the analyses which serve as the focus of this chapter are defined at different levels within the school system. Some characterize the individual student, and hence are available for all students within each school. Others, such as those characterizing teachers and classroom instruction are available only for classrooms, and hence are the same for all students within a classroom. Still others, such as school characteristics, are defined at a level which makes them the same for all classrooms within a school. The fact that the concepts are defined at different levels within the schooling system makes the conceptual and analytical work more difficult. The major outcomes in the study are facets of mathematics achievement: arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. The achievement tests administered to all students, and from which the three subtests were derived, employed a core examination, and one of four rotated forms.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the identification and description of student growth in mathematics achievement. Achievement tests used in international educational surveys are inevitably compromised because national curricula vary significantly in content, and emphasis. In some systems, notably the United States, there is substantial curriculum variation within the system. An initial focus of the SIMS project was to describe and report the curriculum variation. A book on the curriculum analysis includes the mathematics items. Final selection of items for the international testing was determined by ensuring that for each system, its most important Population A content areas were included, and that over all systems, more items were used for content areas that were important in a majority of school systems. In each school system, a complex sample was drawn, starting with basic stratification of schools according to jurisdictional or geographical categories. The general pattern was to sample schools within stratum with probabilities proportional to size, or estimated size.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the models of multilevel response variables. In the majority of applications of multilevel models, one or more response variables are assumed to be measured at the lowest level of the hierarchy. In a two-level model for students grouped within classrooms, there could be achievement test scores measured on students together with an attitude measure for teachers or even the between student standard deviation of test scores as a measure of class heterogeneity, where the variables at both levels are responses regarded as functions of previous achievements and attitudes. The use of height growth data provides a convenient illustration of the usefulness of the multilevel responses model. The same models can be applied to educational data.

CAI systems can be described as instructional networks with individual routes for the students. The purpose of this paper is to formulate optimal rules for deciding on such routes in CAI systems using data from achievement tests administered to the students and information about their previous history in the system. As an example, two types of decision making (viz. placement and mastery decisions) are combined into a simple CAI-network. By simultaneous optimizing the decisions in this network, rules for proceeding students through CAI systems can be designed. The framework for the approach is derived from empirical Bayesian statistics. The utility structure dealt with in the paper is that of a threshold utility function.

Publisher Summary There is some evidence that Type A behavior may be reinforced by enhanced success in academic and vocational endeavors. With regard to academic success, Type A behavior has been found to emerge in children as early as elementary school age and to be related to higher achievement test scores in this age group. This chapter reviews typical findings related to quality of life in Type A individuals. The costs of being Type A greatly outweigh the benefits, and the Type A pattern can be usefully conceptualized as a maladaptive personality style that has major implications for a reduced quality of life. The chapter highlights contemporary work that has focused on irrational cognitions or beliefs as a core component of the Type A personality style. In presenting the model, two major issues of empirical evidence are considered. First, the evidence of strong empirical links among Type A characteristics, increased endorsements of dysfunctional self-evaluative standards, increased dysphoria, and lower levels of self-esteem. Second, the evidence consistent with the proposal that Type A individuals have a more negative view of self.

This chapter discusses problems associated with statistical regression and validation that are numerous and sometimes virtually unsolvable. Major problems of this kind include the following: (1) obtaining a sufficiently large sample of subjects to satisfy the statistical requirements; (2) obtaining a truly satisfactory criterion measure that encompasses all aspects of success, is not biased, and is obtainable for subjects available; and (3) delay beyond deadlines necessary for action. These problems are exaggerated and multiplied when a small research staff is faced with a very large number of jobs and with many new jobs that as yet have no incumbents. Such conditions are most apt to exist in the military, large industries, and civil service organizations. Recent court rulings demanding that tests and other selection instruments have proven validity have made the solution of such problems more imperative than in the past. The concept of synthetic validity is not a new one. Face validity, which holds that the selection instruments are considered pertinent to the job by applicants who are to take the test, has been around for several decades. Expert validity, which holds that experts should consider test materials to be relevant, has also been used for decades in the selection of items for achievement tests. Recently, there has been considerable interest in construct validity that places emphasis on logical relationships of criteria as direct operational definitions of the construct to be measured.

Three experiments are discussed in which differential effects of self-regulated and teacher-provided subject matter sequences were examined. In all experiments secondary school children took an introductory course in physics, which was presented to them in written format. In general, data revealed that subjects performed better on achievement tests (post- and retention tests) under self-regulated conditions, than under teacher-provided ones. Furthermore, subjects under self-regulated conditions were better able to construct an internal representation of the subject matter. In addition, several disordinal aptitude-treatment interactions were detected for inductive and deductive reasoning ability, field independence and analogical reasoning ability. Learners scoring high on these characteristics had an advantage under conditions of self-sequencing and were held back under teacher-provided sequences. The opposite, however, was true for learners judged as low on these aptitudes.

Apart from the widely known model for binary scored items, Rasch, has developed several other models for the analysis of achievement test data. The model we consider here is the so-called multiplicative Poisson model for misreadings. This model assumes that the total number of misreadings on a text for a certain individual is approximately Poisson distributed with an intensity oarameter y which depends on the ratio of two other parameters, cne pertaining to the ability of the individual and one to the difficulty of the text. A Rayesian version of this model was developed by Owen (1969). In this paper we adoot a slightly different formulation in the tradition of the general aoproach by Lindley (Lindley and Smith (1972)). The method is illustrated by an empirical examnle.

This chapter presents the evidence of students' learning within a given block by looking at the proportion correct on the pretests and posttests for Grades 1 to 6 for students in California and Mississippi who participated in the drill-and-practice program during the 1967–68 academic years. It also presents an evaluation of the CAI program. The evaluation involved administering the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) to experimental and control groups at the beginning and end of the academic year. The evaluation includes the performance of the California students during the 1966–67 and 1967–68 academic years and the performance of the Mississippi students during the 1967–68 academic year.

Children with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) are characterized by a poor academic achievement despite an average intelligence. They are therefore typically assessed not only with achievement tests, but also with intelligence tests, usually the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). The assumption of a discrepancy between IQ and achievement in children with SLD has been questioned, however, and the implications of using different measures in batteries of intellectual subtests have not been thoroughly investigated. The present study examined these issues, taking advantage of a large database of scores obtained in the ten core subtests of the WISC-IV by a group of 910 Italian children with a clinical diagnosis of SLD, who were compared with the children considered for national standardization purposes. Our results support the doubts raised concerning the IQ-achievement discrepancy model, showing that relevant discrepancies can emerge even within the WISC profile. The four main WISC-IV indexes were found differently related to intelligence (measured by means of the g-factor) and the g content of many subtests differed in children with SLD vis-a-vis typically-developing children. These results have important implications both theoretical, indicating that the g-factor is weakly identified in children with SLD children, and practical, indicating that the QI obtained with the WISC-IV may not be a good measure of intellectual functioning for children with SLD, which are discussed.