We define Grade Lift as the difference between average class grade and average cumulative class GPA. This metric provides an assessment of how lenient the grading was for a given course. In 2006, we started providing faculty members individualized Grade Lift reports reflecting their position relative to an anonymously plotted school-wide…

Since its inception in 1999, the RateMyProfessors.com (RMP.com) website has grown in popularity and, with that, notoriety. In this research we tested three assumptions about the website: (1) Students use RMP.com to either rant or rave; (2) Students who post on RMP.com are different from students who do not post; and (3) Students reward easiness by…

Many testing programs face the practical challenge of having limited resources to conduct comprehensive standard setting studies. Some researchers have suggested that replicating a group's recommended cut score on a full-length test may be possible by using a subset of the items. However, these studies were based on simulated data. This study…

School personnel currently lack an effective method to pattern and visually interpret disaggregated achievement data collected on students as a means to help inform decision making. This study, through the examination of longitudinal K-12 teacher assigned grading histories for entire cohorts of students from a school district (n=188), demonstrates…

In Andrade and Du (2005), the authors discuss the ways in which students perceive and use rubrics to support learning in the classroom. In an effort to further examine the impact of rubrics on student learning, this study explored how rubrics impacted students learning, as well as whether using rubrics influenced the likelihood that they would use…

There is anecdotal evidence of an increase in school administrators' use of surveys of students to obtain school climate information even though it is difficult to obtain valid measurement from student self-report. To better understand the context, this research estimated the prevalence of the use of student surveys in elementary schools and…

This study illustrates the use of differential item functioning (DIF) and differential step functioning (DSF) analyses to detect differences in item difficulty that are related to experiences of examinees, such as their teachers' instructional practices, that are relevant to the knowledge, skill, or ability the test is intended to measure. This…

Likert questionnaires are widely used in survey research, but it is unclear whether the item data should be investigated by means of parametric or nonparametric procedures. This study compared the Type I and II error rates of the "t" test versus the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon (MWW) for five-point Likert items. Fourteen population distributions were…

Many of us in the social sciences deal with data that do not conform to assumptions of normality and/or homoscedasticity/homogeneity of variance. Some research has shown that parametric tests (e.g., multiple regression, ANOVA) can be robust to modest violations of these assumptions. Yet the reality is that almost all analyses (even nonparametric…

Within the U.S. public school system, English Language Learners (ELL) represent the fastest growing student population. Many of these students struggle to access grade-level content due to Limited English Proficiency (LEP). Although policy regarding LEP status varies state-to-state, most states impose a short time limit on how long a student can…

This article examines how a faculty member's status--either tenured or tenure-track--might affect the grades assigned to students in a writing class. We begin with a brief review of the research surrounding faculty to student assessment practices and follow with specific controversies regarding faculty motivation pertaining to grading practices.…

Yule (1903) and Simpson (1951) described a statistical paradox that occurs when data is aggregated. In such situations, aggregated data may reveal a trend that directly contrasts those of sub-groups trends. In fact, the aggregate data trends may even be opposite in direction of sub-group trends. To reveal Yule-Simpson's paradox (YSP)-type…

This study investigated the impact of the coding scheme on IRT-based true score equating under a common-item nonequivalent groups design. Two different coding schemes under investigation were carried out by assigning either a zero or a blank to a missing item response in the equating data. The investigation involved a comparison study using actual…

When attempting to determine if an intervention has a causal impact, the "gold standard" of program evaluation is the randomized controlled trial (RCT). In education studies random assignment is rarely feasible at the student level, making RCTs harder to conduct. School-level assignment is more common but this often requires considerable resources…

This paper discusses how a seldom-used statistical procedure, recursive regression (RR), can numerically and graphically illustrate data-driven nonlinear relationships and interaction of variables. This routine falls into the family of exploratory techniques, yet a few interesting features make it a valuable compliment to factor analysis and…