An operational multistage adaptive test (MST) requires the development of a large item bank and the effort to continuously replenish the item bank due to concerns about test security and validity over the long term. New items should be pretested and linked to the item bank before being used operationally. The linking item volume fluctuations in…

Screening items for parameter drift helps protect against serious validity threats and ensure score comparability when equating forms. Although many high-stakes credentialing examinations operate with small sample sizes, few studies have investigated methods to detect drift in small sample equating. This study demonstrates that several newly…

Techniques for applying mathematical concepts in the real world: six rarely taught but crucial tools for analysis, research, and problem-solving. Many young graduates leave school with a solid knowledge of mathematical concepts but struggle to apply these concepts in practice. Real scientific and engineering problems are different from those found…

The purpose of this article is twofold. The first is to provide evaluative information on the recovery of model parameters and their standard errors for the two-parameter item response theory (IRT) model using different estimation methods by Mplus. The second is to provide easily accessible information for practitioners, instructors, and students…

Districts across the nation are seeking ways to increase efficiency by maintaining, if not improving, educational outcomes using fewer resources. One measure that is sometimes used as a proxy for school district efficiency is an expenditure-to-performance ratio, for example a ratio of per pupil expenditures to student academic performance. This…

This technical appendix provides additional information about the sample, data, and estimation strategy that were used for a series of AEP Data Notes published by the RAND Corporation in 2018 and 2019. The Data Note series is intended to provide brief, incisive analyses of teacher and school leader survey results which may be of immediate interest…

The Reduced Reparameterized Unified Model (Reduced RUM) is a diagnostic classification model for educational assessment that has received considerable attention among psychometricians. However, the computational options for researchers and practitioners who wish to use the Reduced RUM in their work, but do not feel comfortable writing their own…

Student graduation from high school with a regular high school diploma is an important indicator of school success and one of the most significant indicators of student college and career readiness. In addition, there are substantial economic benefits to high school completion. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National…

"Improving Mathematics in the Early Years and Key Stage 1" reviews the best available evidence to offer five recommendations for developing the maths skills of 3-7-year olds. Recommendations include integrating maths into different activities throughout the day -- for example, at registration and snack time -- to familiarise children…

The problem of racial and ethnic discipline disproportionality is both long-standing and widespread. Educators must address this issue by identifying rates of discipline disproportionality, taking steps to reduce it, and monitoring the effects of intervention on disproportionality. The purpose of this guide is to provide a reference for…

Survey sampling is fundamentally an applied field. The goal in this book is to put an array of tools at the fingertips of practitioners by explaining approaches long used by survey statisticians, illustrating how existing software can be used to solve survey problems, and developing some specialized software where needed. This book serves at least…

Social return on investment (SROI) offers a new strategy to measure and communicate the value of outcomes achieved by programs that provide social, health, and education services to children and their families. It can be a powerful tool for demonstrating the monetary value of programs and services and for communicating that value in a way that can…

Social return on investment (SROI) analysis offers a practical new approach for measuring and communicating the value of outcomes achieved by programs that provide social, health, and educational services to children and their families. This guide highlights the key steps in conducting SROI research, issues in data-gathering and analysis, as well…

Practitioners can benefit from using norms, but they often have to develop their own percentile rank and percentile norms. This article is a tutorial on how to quickly and easily calculate percentile rank and percentile norms using SPSS, and this information is presented for a data set. Some issues in calculating percentile rank and percentile…

This third edition of the best-selling "Mathematics in Nursery Education" provides an accessible introduction to the teaching of mathematics in the early years. Covering all areas of mathematics learning--number and counting, calculation, pattern, shape, measures and data handling--it summarises the research findings and underlying key concepts…