ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Defining and Measuring Academic Success
Author: York, Travis T.
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Achievement Gains,Achievement Rating,Educational Research,Educational Assessment,Higher Education,Literature Reviews,Use Studies,Definitions,Models,Measurement Techniques,Tables (Data),Grades (Scholastic),Grade Point Average,Meta Analysis

Despite, and perhaps because of its amorphous nature, the term &quot;academic success&quot; is one of the most widely used constructs in educational research and assessment within higher education. This paper conducts an analytic literature review to examine the use and operationalization of the term in multiple academic fields. Dominant definitions of the term are conceptually evaluated using Astin's I-E-O model resulting in the proposition of a revised definition and new conceptual model of academic success. Measurements of academic success found throughout the literature are presented in accordance with the presented model of academic success. These measurements are provided with details in a user-friendly table (Appendix B). Results also indicate that grades and GPA are the most commonly used measure of academic success. Finally, recommendations are given for future research and practice to increase effective assessment of academic success.
An Investigation of the Concerns of Fifth Graders Transitioning to Middle School
Author: Bailey, Gahan
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Grade 5,Elementary School Students,Early Adolescents,Middle Schools,Grade 6,Statistical Analysis,Student Attitudes,Anxiety,Student Surveys,Student Characteristics,Peer Influence,Bullying,Physical Education,Academic Achievement,Racial Factors,Educational Environment,Sanitary Facilities,Clubs,Friendship,Student Adjustment,Navigation

Entering middle school can cause apprehension for young adolescents who face many cognitive, physical, social, and emotional changes. A quantitative, descriptive study was designed to identify and explain the concerns of rising sixth graders (n = 225) regarding their transition to the middle grades. Survey data were analyzed with regard to gender, race, and school type (i.e., inner city, urban, suburban, and rural). Undressing in front of others for P.E. was the most frequently rated area of high concern. There was a significant effect of gender on the level of concern for getting lost, changing clothes for P.E., peer pressure, being bullied, and academic performance. There was a significant effect of race on the level of concern for using a locker, having enough time to eat lunch, and going to the restroom. There was a significant effect of school type on the level of concern for making friends, belonging to the right clubs and groups, getting lost, having enough time to eat lunch, going to the restroom, and new school rules. Findings suggest at least a moderate level of concern by most fifth graders regarding various issues associated with middle school transitions, thus confirming the need for special programs to assist new students in acclimating to these changes and further research to determine their impacts.
What Is Your Teacher Rubric? Extracting Teachers&apos; Assessment Constructs
Author: Jeong, Heejeong
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Scoring Rubrics,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Evaluation Criteria,Writing Evaluation,Descriptive Writing,English Teachers,College Faculty,Teacher Made Tests

Rubrics not only document the scales and criteria of what is assessed, but can also represent the assessment construct of the developer. Rubrics display the key assessment criteria, and the simplicity or complexity of the rubric can illustrate the meaning associated with the score. For this study, five experienced teachers developed a rubric for an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) descriptive writing task. Results show that even for the same task, teachers developed different formats and styles of rubric with both similar and different criteria. The teacher rubrics were analyzed for assessment criteria, rubric type and scale type. Findings illustrate that in terms of criteria, all teacher rubrics had five areas in common: comprehension, paragraph structure, sentence structure, vocabulary, and grammar. The criteria that varied were mechanics, length, task completion, and self-correction. Rubric style and scales also were different among teachers. Teachers who valued global concerns (i.e., comprehension) in writing designed more general holistic rubrics, while teachers who focused more on sentence-level concerns (i.e., grammar) developed analytic rubrics with more details. The assessment construct of the teacher was shown in the rubric through assessment criteria, rubric style, and scale.
An Introduction to Missing Data in the Context of Differential Item Functioning
Author: Banks, Kathleen
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Test Bias,Data,Literature Reviews,Evaluation Research,Data Analysis,Testing Problems

This article introduces practitioners and researchers to the topic of missing data in the context of differential item functioning (DIF), reviews the current literature on the issue, discusses implications of the review, and offers suggestions for future research. A total of nine studies were reviewed. All of these studies determined what effect particular missing data techniques would have on the results of certain DIF detection procedures under various conditions. The most important finding of this review involved the use of zero imputation as a missing data technique. The review shows that zero imputation can lead to inflated Type I errors, especially in cases where the examinees ability level has not been taken into consideration.
Exploration of the Core and Variable Dimensions of Extensive Reading Research and Pedagogy
Author: Waring, Rob
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Reading Habits,Reading Research,Guidelines,Teaching Methods,Reading Programs,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Reading Fluency,Reading Comprehension,Reading Materials,Instructional Materials,Linguistic Input

The Extensive Reading Foundation's bibliography now boasts over 530 articles with &quot;Extensive Reading&quot; in the title. About 35% of this rich and diverse body of papers were published in the past decade. A meta-review of this literature shows it is quite fragmented as evidenced by considerable variability in the conceptualization of extensive reading (ER) itself. For example, some researchers suggested that reading graded readers meant the subjects were therefore reading extensively (e.g., Kirchhoff, 2013; Yamashita, 2013) whereas others were more circumspect. Some suggested students were reading extensively by reading as few as 9 books or 140 pages over the duration of the study, or 5 books over an academic year (e.g., Robb &amp; Kano, 2013; Shue, 2003), while others conducted ER over several years (e.g., Nishizawa, Yoshioka, &amp; Fukuda, 2010), and yet others operationalized ER as the intensive reading of difficult material (e.g., Kweon &amp; Kim, 2008). Given the variety and apparent fragmentation of the conceptualization of ER, we believe that it is necessary that our field share a common understanding of what ER is so we can evaluate and interpret ER research within a stable framework and talk a common language. But what is it that forms the core of ER? Is there a defining aspect of ER that determines whether a practice or research design can be called ER, or by its absence, not ER? This paper is an attempt to initiate a dialog to answer these and other questions.
Middle Level Teachers' Perceptions of Interim Reading Assessments: An Exploratory Study of Data-Based Decision Making
Author: Reed, Deborah K.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Middle School Teachers,Teacher Attitudes,Attitude Measures,Reading Achievement,Oral Reading,Reading Fluency,Recall (Psychology),Reading Comprehension,Benchmarking,State Standards,Standardized Tests,Test Items,Focus Groups,Measurement Techniques,Summative Evaluation,Planning,Data,Decision Making,Middle School Students,Formative Evaluation

This study explored the data-based decision making of 12 teachers in grades 6-8 who were asked about their perceptions and use of three required interim measures of reading performance: oral reading fluency (ORF), retell, and a benchmark comprised of released state test items. Focus group participants reported they did not believe the benchmark or ORF tests accurately reflected students' comprehension abilities. Teachers held more favorable opinions of retell but admitted improvising their use of the measure rather than following mandated implementation procedures. Participants reported that only summative state assessment scores were used to plan appropriate instruction and only for large groups. Results suggest the need for improved support for data-based decision making and the development of technically adequate interim measures with relevance to the teachers expected to use them.
Cognitive Diagnostic Modeling Using R
Author: Ravand, Hamdollah
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Test Theory,Models,Computer Software,Open Source Technology,Cognitive Measurement,Item Response Theory,Goodness of Fit,Test Bias,Foreign Countries,Masters Programs,Graduate Students

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDM) have been around for more than a decade but their application is far from widespread for mainly two reasons: (1) CDMs are novel, as compared to traditional IRT models. Consequently, many researchers lack familiarity with them and their properties, and (2) Software programs doing CDMs have been expensive and not readily available. The present paper presents a reader-friendly introduction to the CDMs and uses the CDM package (Robitzsch, Kiefer, Cathrice George, &amp; Uenlue, 2014) in R to demonstrate the application of the generalized deterministic-input, noisy-and-gate model (G-DINA; de la Torre, 2011) and interpret the output. R is a free open source tool which can be utilized to conduct a range of CDMs which otherwise would need separate software programs to run each.
Interrater Reliability in Large-Scale Assessments--Can Teachers Score National Tests Reliably without External Controls?
Author: Pantzare, Anna Lind
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Interrater Reliability,National Competency Tests,Mathematics Tests,Teachers,Scoring,Foreign Countries

In most large-scale assessment systems a set of rather expensive external quality controls are implemented in order to guarantee the quality of interrater reliability. This study empirically examines if teachers' ratings of national tests in mathematics can be reliable without using monitoring, training, or other methods of external quality assurance. A sample of 99 booklets of students' answers to a national test in mathematics was scored by five teachers independently. The interrater reliability was analyzed using consensus and consistency estimates, with the focus on the test as a whole, as well as on individual items. The results show that the estimates are acceptable and in many cases fairly high, irrespective of the reliability measure used. Some plausible explanations for lower interrater reliability in individual items are discussed, and some suggestions are made in the direction of further improving reliability without imposing any system of control.
Your Chi-Square Test Is Statistically Significant: Now What?
Author: Sharpe, Donald
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Statistical Analysis,Statistical Significance,Computation,Comparative Analysis

Applied researchers have employed chi-square tests for more than one hundred years. This paper addresses the question of how one should follow a statistically significant chi-square test result in order to determine the source of that result. Four approaches were evaluated: calculating residuals, comparing cells, ransacking, and partitioning. Data from two recent journal articles were used to illustrate these approaches. A call is made for greater consideration of foundational techniques such as the chi-square tests.
Item Response Theory Using Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models
Author: Ravand, Hamdollah
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Item Response Theory,Hierarchical Linear Modeling,Educational Testing,Reading Comprehension,Reading Tests,Test Bias,English (Second Language),College Entrance Examinations,Foreign Countries

Multilevel models (MLMs) are flexible in that they can be employed to obtain item and person parameters, test for differential item functioning (DIF) and capture both local item and person dependence. Papers on the MLM analysis of item response data have focused mostly on theoretical issues where applications have been add-ons to simulation studies with a methodological focus. Although the methodological direction was necessary as a first step to show how MLMs can be utilized and extended to model item response data, the emphasis needs to be shifted towards providing evidence on how applications of MLMs in educational testing can provide the benefits that have been promised. The present study uses foreign language reading comprehension data to illustrate application of hierarchical generalized models to estimate person and item parameters, differential item functioning (DIF), and local person dependence in a three-level model.
Using Authentic Literature to Develop Challenging and Integrated Curriculum
Author: Ciecierski, Lisa M.
Date: 2015-05-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Integrated Curriculum,Curriculum Development,Middle Schools,Academic Standards,State Standards,Literature,Teaching Methods,Picture Books,Novels,Nonfiction

Dr. William Alexander, a noted curriculum authority and a central founder of the middle school movement, shared in a presentation in 1963 that teachers must have a goal of stimulating a &quot;love for learning, an attitude of inquiry, a passion for truth and beauty, a questioning of mind.&quot; He asserted, &quot;Learning the right answers is not enough, beyond answers alone, we must help children ask the right questions, and discover their answers through creative thinking, reasoning, judging, and understanding.&quot; Alexander's ideals have been influential in the development of the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) position paper, &quot;This We Believe.&quot; This article responds to &quot;This We Believe&quot; by describing one attempt to develop a challenging and integrated curriculum. It also responds to the Common Core State Standards by describing how authentic literature can be used with instructional strategies to support learning across the curriculum. A brief review of related literature is shared. Next, instructional strategies to use with authentic literature are presented. The article concludes with final thoughts about using authentic literature to develop challenging and integrated curriculum. The hope is that this article will help teachers and students create new passions for authentic literature because when students have passion to read, they have passion to learn. Figure 1 provides examplars of authentic literature.
In Search of the Nature of Extensive Reading in L2: Cognitive, Affective, and Pedagogical Perspectives
Author: Yamashita, Junko
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Second Language Learning,Reading Habits,Affective Behavior,Teaching Methods,Reading Instruction,Cognitive Processes,Language Fluency,Reading Attitudes,Reading Motivation,Literacy Education,Second Language Instruction

Extensive reading (ER) has been implemented under a wide variety of names, such as &quot;(uninterrupted) sustained silent reading,&quot; &quot;free voluntary reading,&quot; &quot;pleasure reading,&quot; &quot;book flood,&quot; &quot;independent reading,&quot; and &quot;Drop Everything And Read (DEAR)&quot;; its various names emphasize different aspects of the same/similar kind of reading. Since a series of pioneering publications by Elley and his colleagues demonstrated ER's positive impacts on second language (L2)1 learning in various countries (e.g., Elley, 1991, 2000; Elley &amp; Mangubhai, 1983), ER has received attention as a possible and promising way of improving L2 abilities. In recent years, there has been phenomenal growth in the interest in ER amongst L2 researchers and educators. Conferences, professional associations, and journals specifically focusing on the theme of ER have been founded (e.g., the World Congress on Extensive Reading, Japan Extensive Reading Association, JALT ER Special Interest Group, &quot;Extensive Reading in Japan,&quot; &quot;Journal of Extensive Reading&quot;). In addition, a number of online resources to help promote ER in educational settings are now available (cf. Lynn, 2014). Given this situation, this paper is an attempt to contribute to our understanding of the fundamentals of ER and to clarify its nature.
Lest We Forget--The Open Window
Author: Lounsbury, John H.
Date: 2014-05-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Middle School Students,Early Adolescents,School Responsibility,Adolescent Development,School Role,Student Needs

In this article, John Lounsbury writes that he believes schools and teachers have been pushed to give so much time and attention to meeting narrow cognitive goals that they have not impacted students as persons and citizens as significantly as they should have. The great concern about preparing students for tomorrow--for high school, college, and career--has led to overlooking the fact that students are somebody &quot;today,&quot; and that now they are firming up the attitudes, dispositions, and values that will be the prime determinants of both their success in future schooling and in life itself. He remarks that Mother Nature provides an open window with students in this age group that gives educators a better than usual chance to influence them in lasting ways. Lounsbury believes the obsession with standardized test scores may have made the reduced attention to broader, affective goals understandable, but certainly not acceptable if middle level schools are to fulfill the commitment to educating the whole young adolescent. Lounsbury recognizes that it is both a privilege and a profound responsibility of middle schools to guide the learning and development of impressionable young adolescents as they come of age.
The Effect of Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict on Performance of Vice Principals: The Mediating Role of Burnout
Author: Celik, Kazim
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Assistant Principals,Burnout,Role Conflict,Administrator Characteristics,Performance,Administrator Responsibility,Elementary Schools,High Schools,Foreign Countries,Questionnaires,Statistical Analysis,Ambiguity (Context),Administrator Attitudes,Structural Equation Models

Problem Statement: Role ambiguity and role conflict are considered issues that affect performance and lead to burnout. While numerous studies have analyzed role ambiguity or role conflict in relation to burnout or performance, few studies have studied all of these issues together. Since vice principals are expected to carry out a variety of responsibilities as principals and educators, it is predicted that they frequently experience role ambiguity, role conflict, and burnout. However, there is a dearth of studies researching how vice principals in schools are affected by this situation. Purpose of the Study: The study aims to investigate the effects of role ambiguity and role conflict on the burnout of head vice principals and vice principals and on job performance indirectly and directly. Methods: Two hundred vice principals working at elementary and high schools in the city centers of Denizli and Manisa were contacted. The Maslach Burnout Inventory, Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity Questionnaire, and Job Performance Scale were used. In line with the purpose of the study, the model was tested to analyze the cause and effect relationship between variables. SPSS 17 and AMOS 7.0 were used to analyze the data. Findings and Results: The indirect and direct effects of role ambiguity on job performance were significant. In terms of the effect of role ambiguity on job performance, full mediation of emotional exhaustion and partial mediation of personal accomplishment were found. The direct and indirect effects of role conflict on job performance were also significant. The full mediation of emotional exhaustion and the partial mediation of depersonalization resulted from the effect of Role Conflict on job performance. Conclusions and Recommendations: According to the results of the study, the direct effect of role ambiguity and role conflict on job performance is higher than the indirect effect. It was found that role ambiguity decreases job performance indirectly and directly. While the direct effect of role conflict increases job performance, the indirect effect of role conflict decreases job performance. Emotional exhaustion fully mediates both role ambiguity/job performance and role conflict/job performance relationships. While personal accomplishment plays a partially mediating role in the relationship between role ambiguity and job performance, depersonalization partially mediates the relationship of role conflict and job performance. Based on the results of the study, it can be said that determining the mission, authority, and responsibilities of vice principals might increase their performance.
Quality and Features of Education in the Muslim World
Author: Shah, Sayyed Farooq
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Quality,Muslims,Islamic Culture,Islam,Politics of Education,Educational History,Social Influences,Cultural Influences,Religious Factors,Barriers,Educational Improvement,Educational Practices,Semitic Languages,Conflict of Interest,Knowledge Level,Religious Cultural Groups,Misconceptions,Western Civilization,Elementary Secondary Education,Higher Education,Foreign Countries

The major purpose of this article was to disclose the quality of education in the Muslim world and try to clarify the misperceptions in the West and in the Muslim world about Islamic education. It also tries to highlight the efforts of Islamic scholars in filling the gaps between them. Education in the Muslim world and Islamic education have gained much attention in the past few years due to the perceived link between those issues and concerns for development and security in the Muslim world and beyond. This paper attempts to define Islamic education, provide an in-depth analysis of the educational systems and Islamic education in the Muslim world, using political-historical, socio-cultural, and religious analytical approaches, and identify challenges in improving Islamic education. The paper concludes with a synthesis of approaches and strategies for improving education in Islamic schools of Islamic world.