ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Observational Timing Study on the SAT Reasoning Test™ for Test-Takers with Learning Disabilities and/or AD/HD. Research Report No. 2006-4. ETS RR-06-23
Author: Cahalan-Laitusis, Cara
Date: 2006-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: College Entrance Examinations,Learning Disabilities,Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,Timed Tests,Observation,Comparative Analysis,Test Items,Replication (Evaluation),High School Students,Testing Accommodations,Critical Reading,Reading Tests,Mathematics Tests,Writing Tests

The purpose of this study is to provide information on actual time used by students with disabilities on the new SAT®. This study observed students with learning disabilities (LD) and/or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) as they took SAT items under strict time limits and recorded the amount of time taken for each item. The study is a replication of study 2 in Bridgeman, Cahalan, and Cline (2003), which observed students without disabilities completing the same test items that are included in this study. Comparisons of the results from this study to the results of Bridgeman et al. are made and recommendations on appropriate extended-time limits for most students with disabilities are provided. An appendix contains supplemental tables.
Power Analysis for Cross Level Mediation in CRTs
Author: Kelcey, Ben
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Cluster Grouping,Randomized Controlled Trials,Statistical Analysis,Computation,Educational Research,Intervention,Influences

A common design in education research for interventions operating at a group or cluster level is a cluster randomized trial (CRT) (Bloom, 2005). In CRTs, intact clusters (e.g., schools) are assigned to treatment conditions rather than individuals (e.g., students) and are frequently an effective way to study interventions because they permit researchers to accommodate existing school structures and the multilevel nature of many educational interventions. In this study, the author developed closed form analytic expressions for the test statistics of the mediation effect in three level CRT designs examining cross-level (e.g., 3-2-1) mediation. Using this test statistic, he estimated the power to detect cross-level mediation effects under different scenarios to assist researchers in the planning and design of multilevel mediation studies. To fix ideas, consider an example where the intervention is a professional development program to increase pedagogical knowledge and it is assigned at random to intact schools. In theory, exposure to the professional development program (treatment) should increase teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (mediator) which in turns increases students' achievement levels (outcome). The study could be described as a 3-2-1 cross-level mediation design because its hypothesized that a treatment assigned at the school level (level 3) impacts a classroom level (level 2) mediator which in turn impacts a student level (level 1) outcome. The focus of this study was to develop a framework to assess the power to detect cross-level mediation for this particular three level CRT design. A figure is appended.
Invariance of Linkings of the Revised 2005 SAT Reasoning Test™ to the SAT® I: Reasoning Test across Gender Groups. Research Report No. 2005-6. ETS RR-05-17
Author: Liu, Jinghua
Date: 2005-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Gender Differences,Research Reports,Cognitive Tests,College Entrance Examinations,Standardized Tests,Reading Tests,Verbal Tests,Mathematics Tests,Equated Scores,Population Groups,Effect Size,Statistical Analysis,Alignment (Education),Correlation

Score equity assessment was used to evaluate linkings of new SAT® to the current SAT Reasoning Test™. Population invariance across gender groups was studied on the linkage of a new SAT critical reading prototype to a current SAT verbal section, and on the linkage of a new SAT math prototype to a current SAT math section. The results indicated that the conversion lines obtained through subgroup-only linkings were very similar to those obtained using the total group linking for both critical reading and math prototypes. Even though there were slight degrees of divergence from the total group conversion, the differences were smaller than the differences associated with rounding rules for the SAT. Hence, on the basis of the field trial data, it appears that population invariance was achieved with respect to gender groups.
From High School to the Future: Getting to College Readiness and College Graduation
Author: Roderick, Melissa
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: College Readiness,Graduation Rate,Higher Education,College Students,Enrollment,Grade Point Average,Scores,College Entrance Examinations,College Choice,Pupil Personnel Services,Academic Support Services,Student Personnel Services,Academic Achievement,High School Seniors,Hierarchical Linear Modeling

Over the past 20 years, gaps in students' educational aspirations have shrunk considerably (Roderick et al., 2008; Roderick, Nagaoka, &amp; Coca, 2011; Kao &amp; Tienda, 1998; Avery &amp; Kane, 2004; Turner, 2007; Deil-Amen &amp; Tevis, 2010). Similarly, racial and ethnic gaps in college enrollment have shrunk. The one area in which postsecondary racial gaps have not improved is in college completion (Turner, 2007). Given the complex and varied nature of the college application, enrollment, and graduation process, it is unsurprising that district and school policies have used a scattershot approach to evaluating college readiness, with rubrics containing items pertaining to non-cognitive skills, test scores, numbers of applications, FAFSA completion, college visits, and college knowledge. The problem with such an approach is not that these items are bad in and of themselves--indeed, all of these factors have valid research behind them--but rather there is no sense of the relative importance of these factors nor of the degree to which any of these factors ultimately affects degree completion. Here the authors have framed this analysis in terms of which factors as viewed from a high school standpoint, can have the largest influence on degree attainment. The authors propose four possible policy options: Raise Grades (GPA), Raise test scores (ACT), improve the rates at which students enroll in &quot;match&quot; colleges, improve college choice by looking at colleges' institutional four-year graduation rate. Findings strongly suggest that the wide variation in college graduation rates, even among similarly qualified students, make it impossible to set a single set of college readiness benchmarks. It does appear possible, however, to create a demarcation of responsibility between high schools and colleges. On the one hand, high schools could be doing a great deal more to boost student achievement, especially related to grades, and providing structured supports around these students to ensure that they apply, and enroll in colleges that maximize students' chances of success. Colleges, on the other hand, play their own role in supporting students through graduation. For high schools, the importance of making hard work pay off lies in helping students make college choices that translate their high school preparation into the highest chance of earning a college degree. For colleges, the challenge in making hard work pay off is to provide the supports necessary for the high-achieving students they admit to continue to succeed on their campuses. Two tables are appended.
Improving Balance in Regression Discontinuity Design by Matching: Estimating the Effect of Academic Probation after the First Year of College
Author: Chi, Olivia L.
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Regression (Statistics),Quasiexperimental Design,Nonparametric Statistics,Academic Probation,Undergraduate Students,Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Foreign Countries,Replication (Evaluation),Effect Size,Suspension,Incentives,Student Improvement,Grade Point Average

This study focuses on how matching, a method of preprocessing data prior to estimation and analysis, can be used to reduce imbalance between treatment and control group in regression discontinuity design. To examine the effects of academic probation on student outcomes, researchers replicate and expand upon research conducted by Lindo, Sanders, and Oreopolous in their 2010 study &quot;Ability, Gender, and Performance Standards: Evidence from Academic Probation.&quot; In replicating the results of Lindo et al. (2010), researchers find imbalance in observable pre-treatment characteristics between the treatment and control groups in the study. Such imbalance may indicate that randomization may not have been properly approximated through the regression discontinuity design. To improve balance and better approximate a randomized experiment, researchers preprocess Lindo et al.'s data set by performing exact matching on pre-treatment covariates, such as high school grade percentile and native language, and then re-estimate the impact of academic probation on student outcomes. After preprocessing the data through exact matching, the sample consists of a subset of the original sample (12,530), with 6,506 first year students in a large Canadian university made up of one central campus and two smaller satellite campuses. Results indicate that the effect sizes of academic probation on the decision to leave the university, as well as the effect on subsequent grades, were previously underestimated by Lindo et al. (2010). By utilizing the matching method of preprocessing data prior to estimation and analysis, imbalance was reduced between treatment and control groups in a regression discontinuity design. By improving balance, bias was reduced in the estimates of the effects of being placed on academic probation on student outcomes, and larger discouragement and encouragement effects were uncovered. Tables and figures are appended.
How Do Changes in the Language of Instruction and Classroom Composition Affect English Learners?
Author: Perez, Maria
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Language of Instruction,English Language Learners,Classroom Environment,Barriers,Immersion Programs,Bilingual Education,Instructional Effectiveness,Academic Achievement,Scores,Correlation,State Legislation,Compliance (Legal),Elementary School Students,Grade 2,Grade 3,Grade 4,Grade 5,Grade 6

The number of students that live in families where a language other than English is spoken has risen relative to the English-only households in the United States over the last 25 years. These students face the dual challenge of mastering English while acquiring academic skills and knowledge. The education of these students has been shaped by several national- and state- level legal decisions of the past that have required schools to take action by providing services to help linguistic minority students overcome language barriers that impede their equal participation. Those services most often take the form of either an &quot;English-immersion&quot; approach, in which students receive all instruction in English, or employ a &quot;bilingual model&quot; where students are initially taught in some combination of English and their native language and eventually transfer to English-only classrooms. The question of which model of instruction is more &quot;effective&quot; has been notoriously difficult to answer and remains an open and controversial debate. The authors of this article take advantage of a policy passed in California that changed the default instructional program for ELs . Prior to 1998, most ELs were placed into bilingual education. This state-level legislation forced schools to move students to move to a different instructional setting--a change that would not had been chosen otherwise--providing a natural experiment opportunity to evaluate the effect of bilingual education versus English immersion on the academic achievement of ELs. Also analyzed is how changes in the composition of the classroom affect the academic achievement of students. Findings indicate that the achievement scores of ELs declined by the switch from bilingual education to English immersion programs, with the exception of grades 2-3 reading scores. The authors also found that there is a beneficial effect of placing ELs into classrooms with more native English speakers. Tables and figures are appended.
Optimal Design for Regression Discontinuity Studies with Clustering
Author: Rhoads, Christopher
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Regression (Statistics),Cluster Grouping,Educational Research,Sample Size,Statistical Analysis,Research Design

Recent years have seen an increased interest in quantitative educational research studies that use random assignment (RA) to evaluate the causal impacts of educational interventions (Angrist, 2004). The multi-level structure of the public education system in the United States often leads to experimental designs where naturally occurring clusters (eg. schools) are utilized to recruit participants (eg. students) into a study and/or as units that are randomized into one of two experimental conditions. When multiple clusters are recruited to participate in a research study but individuals within clusters are randomly assigned to experimental conditions the resulting experimental design is often referred to as a &quot;multi-site&quot; design. When clusters are utilized as the unit of randomization the resulting experimental design is generally called a &quot;cluster randomized&quot; or &quot;hierarchical&quot; design. While designs that use some form of random assignment are generally preferred for making causal inferences about treatment effects, RA designs are not always practical or feasible (Shadish, Cook and Campbell, 2002). The next best alternative to a random assignment design is often the regression discontinuity (RD) design. The same clustering issues that arise with random assignment studies also impact regression discontinuity studies. The score variable may be measured at any of many different levels in the educational hierarchy while outcome measurements are obtained at a lower level in the hierarchy. These sorts of situations lead to &quot;hierarchical&quot; regression discontinuity (RD) designs. An important component of planning experiments with clustering (whether they be multi-site or cluster randomized designs) is to determine the optimal within and between cluster sample sizes subject to a cost constraint. The current paper builds on previous work by Schochet (2008, 2009) in order to provide formulas for the optimal sample size at each level of a two-level regression discontinuity design. The paper also provides optimal sample size formulas for unbalanced random assignment designs (such formulas have not previously appeared in the literature). Optimal sample sizes for RD designs are compared to the optimal samples sizes for the corresponding RA designs. One table is appended.
Immediate and Longitudinal Effects of the Tennessee Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Program on Student Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Outcomes
Author: Lipsey, Mark W.
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Preschool Education,Program Effectiveness,Outcomes of Education,School Readiness,Economically Disadvantaged,Randomized Controlled Trials,Regression (Statistics),Longitudinal Studies,Kindergarten,Grade 1

Relatively few rigorous studies of the effectiveness of contemporary public prekindergarten programs have been conducted despite the growing number of programs and large monetary investments that accompany them. The study on which this presentation is based was launched in partnership with the Tennessee State Department of Education's Division of School Readiness and Early Learning to provide an assessment of the effects of the statewide Tennessee Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (TN-VPK) program on the readiness for kindergarten of the economically disadvantaged population it serves. TN-VPK has become a controversial program in Tennessee, with some legislators expressing doubts about its value in the context of severe budget shortfalls and still others referring to it even more skeptically as expensive babysitting. This study interleaves a randomized control trial (RCT) design and an age-cutoff regression discontinuity (RD) design to evaluate the effectiveness of the TN-VPK program. Though the project is still underway, this presentation will summarize results from the RCT through first grade. One table is appended.
How Does Transition from Elementary to Middle School Affect the Racial Achievement Gap?
Author: Vanlaar, Gudrun
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Achievement Gap,Student Promotion,Elementary School Students,Middle School Students,Racial Differences,African American Students,Hispanic American Students,White Students,Evidence,Public Schools,Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Research Design,Data Analysis

Most research on the middle school transition focuses on developmental and psychological changes around the age of the transition, and investigates or discusses the impact of such changes on academic performance, motivation and behavior in schools. In addition to intrapersonal developmental changes that middle-school students experience, they also experience significant changes in school context and school experiences. What has been less studied however, is whether and how the transition from elementary to middle school may affect the racial achievement gaps. In other words, it is not known yet whether the change in school contexts affects students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds in different ways, possibly affecting the black-white or Hispanic-white achievement gaps. This paper addresses this question. On the whole, it is unclear whether the transition to middle school may exacerbate achievement gaps or narrow them. This paper attempts to provide initial evidence on this question. Preliminary findings suggest that the transition to middle school has, on average a significant effect on racial achievement gaps. Further analyses will need to be conducted to rule out alternative explanations for the findings, to explore potential mediators and mechanisms of the findings, and examine the extent to which these negative effects of the middle school transition persist over subsequent years. Tables and figures are appended.
Is More Time in Head Start Always Better for Children? The Moderating Role of Classroom Quality
Author: Friedman-Krauss, Allison H.
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Program Effectiveness,School Readiness,Low Income Groups,Child Care,Educational Quality,Quasiexperimental Design,Language Skills,Mathematics Skills,Child Behavior,Preschool Children,Thinking Skills,Federal Programs,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Comparative Analysis,Verbal Ability,Intelligence Tests,Vocabulary,Antisocial Behavior,Check Lists,Longitudinal Studies

The 1998 reauthorization of Head Start called for a national evaluation of the Head Start program. The goal of Head Start is to improve the school readiness skills of low-income children. Yet characteristics of Head Start programs, such as their quality and the amount of time children spend in them may influence their effectiveness at achieving this goal. Previous research has demonstrated that children who spend more weekly hours in Head Start demonstrate larger cognitive gains than children who attend fewer weekly hours (Li, Farkas, Duncan, Vandell, &amp; Burchinal, 2013). But the quality of care children attend during such hours may also matter, as there is mounting evidence regarding the importance of classroom quality for children's developing school readiness skills (Burchinal, Vandergrift, Pianta, &amp; Mashburn, 2009; Zaslow et al., 2010). Thus, the effect of weekly hours in Head Start may vary by the quality of the Head Start classroom. Indeed, previous research has found that child care quality moderates the association between hours in child care and child behavior problems, but not cognitive skills (McCartney et al., 2010; Votruba-Drzal, Coley, &amp; Chase-Lansdale, 2004). The current study expands on previous research by using quasi-experimental methods that leverage the experimental context of the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS; Puma et al., 2010) to understand the extent to which Head Start classroom quality moderates the impact of weekly hours in Head Start on children's early language and math skills and externalizing behaviors. The authors hypothesize that weekly hours in Head Start will be more strongly associated with outcomes for children enrolled in high quality programs as compared with children enrolled in low quality programs. In contrast to previous research that used samples of children enrolled in child care, the current study relies on a sample of 3- and 4-year-old children enrolled in educationally focused Head Start programs in 22 states. Four tables are appended.
Instrumental Iteration toward FOI Evaluation of Pedagogical Methods
Author: Gonzalez Canche, Manuel S.
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Fidelity,Program Implementation,Educational Research,Grants,Video Technology,English Language Learners,Teacher Evaluation,Grade 3,Grade 5,Scoring Rubrics,Elementary School Teachers,Teaching Methods,Second Language Instruction,Second Language Learning,Factor Analysis,Correlation,Interrater Reliability,Statistical Analysis,Measures (Individuals)

This study is part of the core research agenda of the five-year, Goal 3 grant funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, U. S. Department of Education &quot;Improving the Teaching and Learning of English Language Learners: The Instructional Conversation Model.&quot; In video review of teaching, bias in evaluation or rating is evident in many studies. Some of it is inevitable given the use of video review for professional development purposes and the reflexive nature of that rating process. This study utilizes an iterative process to refine an existing evaluation rubric for rating pedagogical intervention in recorded 3rd and 5th grade lessons across subject types. Tables are appended.
Middle School Students Discussing Controversial Issues to Learn about Civic Engagement: A Randomized Evaluation of the Word Generation Program
Author: Lin, Alex
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Middle School Students,Controversial Issues (Course Content),Citizen Participation,Program Effectiveness,Intervention,Ethnicity,Citizenship Education,Asian American Students,Hispanic American Students,Student Surveys,Multiple Regression Analysis

Although past research suggests that civic education programs can be effective in helping students become more civically engaged, this study tests whether these treatment effects are generalizable across an urban school district with multiple middle school sites. This study also contributes understanding of how treatment effects may vary for students from ethnic minority populations, in particular to those identified as Asian and Latino. The theoretical framework that is tested in this study is the Structure-Stimulus-Orientation-Response (S-S-O-R) model that hypothesizes the relationship between classroom discussion of controversial issues and civic engagement. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a cross-content intervention called Word Generation (WG) has a significant impact on students' self-reported civic engagement. Research is guided by the following questions: (1) Does the Word Generation program have a positive impact on students' self-reported civic engagement?; and (2) To what extent does students' ethnic identification (e.g. Latino and Asian) influence the direction and strength of the relationship between program participation and self-reported civic engagement? From fall 2011 to spring 2012, middle school students (N = 5,870) participated in a randomized study of the WG intervention that was conducted in an urban school district located in a West Coast metropolitan area of the United States. Multiple regression results show that participation in the WG program has a significant impact on students' civic engagement, after accounting for other covariates. Tables and figures are appended.