Recent randomized experiments have found that seemingly "small" social-psychological interventions in education--that is, brief exercises that target students' thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in and about school--can lead to large gains in student achievement and sharply reduce achievement gaps even months and years later. These interventions do…

Value-added models have become popular in research and pay-for-performance plans. While scholars have focused attention on some aspects of their validity (e.g., scoring procedures), others have received less scrutiny. This article focuses on the extent to which value-added scores correspond to other indicators of teacher and teaching quality. The…

This study examined the effects of professional development integrating academic literacy and biology instruction on science teachers' instructional practices and students' achievement in science and literacy. The intervention consisted of 10 days of professional development in Reading Apprenticeship, an instructional framework integrating…

In this paper we analyze longitudinal data from a nationally representative panel of college entrants to test and compare several theoretical explanations of college degree attainment and noncompletion. So far, relatively little emphasis has been placed on determining the relative and combined predictive power of competing explanations or…

The authors investigated patterns of change in three middle grade teachers' beliefs and practices about motivation in mathematics during a yearlong professional development project with a university researcher. Four principles of motivation (and corresponding instructional strategies) were introduced in this sequence: supporting students'…

In this analysis, the authors explore the relationship between the social context of high schools and school-to-school variation in tracking policies. The authors consider three explanations for the implementation of highly elaborated tracking systems: opportunity hoarding, status competition, and a technical-functional explanation. Building on…

Students from minority segregated schools tend to achieve and attain less than similar students from White segregated schools. This study examines whether peer effects can explain this relationship using normative models and frog-pond models. Normative models (where peers become alike) suggest that minority schoolmates are a liability. Frog-pond…

The institutional environment of America's schools has changed substantially as government regulation has focused increasingly on the core technical work of schools--instruction. The authors explore the school administrative response to this changing environment, describing how government regulation becomes embodied in the formal structure of four…

This study attempted to untangle how two dimensions of school racial/ethnic composition--racial/ethnic diversity of the student body and racial/ethnic matching between children and their peers--were related to socioemotional and academic development after the transition into elementary school. Analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal…

Though calibration of an achievement test within psychological and educational context is very often carried out by the Rasch model, data sampling is hardly designed according to statistical foundations. However, Kubinger, Rasch, and Yanagida (2009) recently suggested an approach for the determination of sample size according to a given Type I and…

The linear logistic test model (LLTM) is a valuable and approved tool in educational research, as it allows for modelling cognitive components involved in a cognitive task. It allows for a rigorous assessment of fit by means of a Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT). This approach is genuine to the Rasch family of models, yet it suffers from the unsolved…

Educational achievement is a very important issue for parents, teachers, and the government. An accurate measurement plays a very important role in evaluating achievement fairly, and, therefore, analysis methods have been developed considerably in recent years. Education based on long-time learning processes forms a fruitful base for item tests,…

This article discusses the application of logit models for the analyses of 2-way categorical observations. The models described are generalized linear models using the logit link function. One of the models is the Rasch model (Rasch, 1960). The objective is to test hypotheses of marginal and conditional independence between explanatory quantities…

If classification in a limited number of categories is the purpose of testing, computerized adaptive tests (CATs) with algorithms based on sequential statistical testing perform better than estimation-based CATs (e.g., Eggen & Straetmans, 2000). In these computerized classification tests (CCTs), the Sequential Probability Ratio Test (SPRT) (Wald,…

Educational measurement is generally thought of as empirical, quantitative, and large-scale, whose purpose is to monitor educational systems. Sociocognitive studies, on the other hand, are associated with small-scale, theoretical, and qualitative studies, the purpose of which is to conduct fine-grained analysis of learning or teaching, or to…