Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Paperless Debate: The Wave Of The Future, Michael B. Greenstein

Program Evaluation

This paper details a complete program evaluation of a high school debate team’s transition from debating with paper to paperless debate. The study examines if switching to debate without paper has improved the success of the debate team by focusing on the team’s winning percentage, the cost of debate travel and participation, as well as the debaters’ views of the ease of debating before and after the paperless transition. The paper concludes that the transition was indeed a success, because it increased the team’s win percentage (though not by a statistically significant margin), saved the team thousands of dollars, and …

Understanding How Service-Learning Impacts The Dispositions Of Teach For America Candidates And Their Students, Dymaneke Mitchell, Sy Karlin, Todd Alan Price

Faculty Publications

This article is based on a study that assessed Teach for America (TFA) candidates’ dispositions toward service-learning before and after they developed and implemented a service-learning project with their students. This article may be used to understand the significance of raising alternative certification teacher candidates’ community awareness so that they may stay longer as teachers while also becoming more acculturated to their school and neighborhood surroundings. The authors assert that candidates will become more effective through carefully planned service-learning experiences with community partners and become better service and public education advocates.

Value Added Methods: Moving From Univariate To Multivariate Criteria, David Newman, Isadore Newman, Carolyn Ridenour, Jennifer Morales

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The authors describe five value-added methods (VAM) used in school assessment as the backdrop to their main thesis. Then they review the assumptions underlying measurement and evaluation, the foundation of all assessment systems, including value-added. They discuss the traditional criterion variable used in VAM: a standardized test score. Next, they challenge the univariate assumptions of VAMs, and argue that a multivariate paradigm of VAM is more advantageous for educators and stakeholders. Finally they describe a potential scenario whereby a multivariate VAM might be implemented.

Understanding Students' Ability To Communicate Mathematics In Developmental Mathematics Courses, Kirsty Eisenhart, Amy Galick

Assessment Grants

No abstract provided.

Examining And Testing The Use Of An Online Orientation, Betty D. Dennis

Assessment Grants

No abstract provided.

Assessment Matters #19, February 2014, Assessment In Action Committee

Assessment Matters @ WMU

No abstract provided.

Standardized Tests And Assessment In The Business School: A Pilot Study, Devrim Yaman

Assessment Grants

No abstract provided.

The Phoenix Project: An Intrusive Retention Initiative For At-Risk Students, Geralyn Heystek, Betsy Drummer, Chris Robinson

Assessment Grants

No abstract provided.

Goal Attainment Scaling: Measurement Of Student Learning And Teaching Clinic Outcomes: Program Evaluation In Progress, Ann M. Chapleau

Assessment Grants

No abstract provided.

Developing College Readiness Indices For Maine High Schools: An Exploratory Study, David L. Silvernail Phd, James E. Sloan, Chelsea R. Paul, Sarah R. Linet

Higher Education and College Readiness

This Research Brief describes the results of an exploratory study of the development and potential uses of a set college readiness measures for Maine high schools. The study was designed to: (1) explore the viability of creating a series of school‐level college readiness indices; (2) examine the relationships between the indices and other school level input factors; and (3) explore how the indices may be used at the state and local levels in assessing college readiness of high schools’ graduates.

Learning Outcomes [Presentation With Audio], Lisa Brun

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Needs Assessment Of Students And Student Groups [Presentation With Audio], Sam Earls

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Ask Standards [Presentation With Audio], Kelcie Dixion

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

College Student Alcohol Assessment [Presentation With Audio], Allie Sharp

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Assessing Student Satisfaction [Presentation With Audio], Marrissa Bryant

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Assessing Student Learning [Presentation With Audio], Brimah Vonjo

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Council For The Advancement Of Standards In Higher Education [Presentation With Audio], Richard Rose

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Student Affairs: A Culture Of Assessment [Presentation With Audio], Leslie Poynter

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Focus Groups: An Assessment Tool In Student Affairs [Presentation With Audio], Sarah Jackson

Assessment & Accountability in Student Affairs & Higher Education (CNS 610)

No abstract provided.

Assessment Practices Past And Future: Alternative Approaches And Teacher Perceptions, Mariah Garcia

Honors Projects in Applied Psychology

Current educational policy utilizes standardized assessments to measure students’ academic abilities and to determine whether schools are successful in their education of students. The purpose of this project is to expose holes in using only standardized assessments and the implications this practice has for students, teachers and administrators. Proposed alternatives to standardized assessments that could effectively measure students’ academic ability include performance assessment, exhibitions, portfolio assessment and computer adaptive testing (CAT). Schools across the country are taking part in initiatives driven by the effectiveness of alternative assessment in action. In order to determine whether the literature on the implications of …

The Challenges Of Persisting First Generation College Students: A Comparison Between Students With Trio Support And Those Without, Claudean Kizart

Dissertations

This qualitative study examined first generation college students who persisted towards completing baccalaureate degrees with and without the assistance of TRIO, a federally funded program that assisted first-generation college students with obtaining baccalaureate degree. The researcher gathered empirical data through conducting semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with 20 first-generation students from two universities who were beyond their first year of college and possessed a 2.0 or higher grade point average (GPA). Interviews were retrospective, as all students were upper-class college students who completed at least one year of college at one of two four-year universities. It was important to the study design …

Modeling Dif With The Rasch Model: The Unfortunate Combination Of Mean Ability Differences And Guessing, Christine E. Demars, Daniel P. Jurich

Department of Graduate Psychology - Faculty Scholarship

Concerns with using the Rasch model to estimate DIF when there are large group differences in ability (impact) and the data follow a 3PL model are discussed. This demonstration showed that, with large group ability differences, difficult non-DIF items appeared to favor the focal group and, to a smaller degree, easy non-DIF items appeared to favor the reference group. Correspondingly, the effect sizes for DIF items were biased. With equal ability distributions for the reference and focal groups, DIF effect sizes were unbiased for non-DIF items; effect sizes were somewhat overestimated in absolute values for difficult items and somewhat underestimated …

Successive Study Of Diversity Conference Evaluations Of Presenters By Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, And Disability, Autumn M. Palmer, Christine M. Wilson, Judith Puncochar

Conference Presentations

A Midwestern university’s annual diversity conference hosts about 1,500 attendees from a campus of 9,000 students. Using a successive independent samples design, a series of cross-sectional surveys were conducted to answer the research question, how does a presenter’s race, gender, and ability/disability affect participant responses on conference evaluations. A review of the literature has determined that our research represents the largest and longest empirical study of a higher education diversity conference in the United States. The research is a comparative study of evaluation trends of conference attendees toward diversity conference presenters based on race, gender, and disability over eight years …

Cost-Savings Achieved In Two Semesters Through The Adoption Of Open Educational Resources, John Levi Hilton Iii, T. Jared Robinson, David Wiley, J. Dale Ackerman

Entrepreneurship Faculty Research

Textbooks represent a significant portion of the overall cost of higher education in the United States. The burden of these costs is typically shouldered by students, those who support them, and the taxpayers who fund the grants and student loans which pay for textbooks. Open educational resources (OER) provide students a way to receive high quality learning materials at little or no cost to students. We report on the cost savings achieved by students at eight colleges when these colleges began utilizing OER in place of traditional commercial textbooks.

Perceptions Of General Education Deans And Department Chairs Of Their Colleges As Learning Organizations, May Charmayne Mulligan

Dissertations

Higher education institutions are being pushed towards increased assessment practices because of rising costs, mass access, new delivery methods, and rising competition on the national and global scale. Academic deans and department heads are at the center of these assessment efforts, and assessment should guide changes within the organization for improvement. Learning organization theory provides a framework for creating an environment favorable to assessment and improvement. Six learning organization principles – learning, communication, measurement, problem-solving, structure, and vision – were used for this study.

An online questionnaire was used to capture the perceptions of deans and department heads as to …

Investigation Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Of 2009: The Role Of Stimulus Funding On Development Of A Three-Tiered Intervention, Laura Grayson

Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to investigate how school districts, in the state of Missouri, dispersed funds from the American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 to help drive educational reform, with respect to reading achievement and Response to Intervention strategies. The difference between the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other pieces of legislation aimed at educational accountability was that states were only given two years to spend the monies associated with this legislation. This quantitative research study examined 60 school districts in the state of Missouri to determine if there was a relationship between the stimulus …

The Development And Validation Of A Rubric To Enhance Performer Feedback For Undergraduate Vocal Solo Performance, Katherine Herrell

Dissertations

This is a study of the development and validation of a rubric to enhance performer feedback for undergraduate vocal solo performance. In the literature, assessment of vocal performance is under-represented, and the value of feedback from the assessment of musical performances, from the point of view of the performer, is nonexistent. The research questions guiding this study were 1) What are the appropriate performance criteria, learning outcomes, and meaningful descriptors for various levels of proficiency for undergraduate solo vocal performance? and 2) How do students perceive their use of the feedback from the solo vocal performance rubric to improve future …

Investigation Of The Influence Of The Socratic Method On Leadership Skills Among Jrotc Cadet Leaders At A Military Boarding School, Francesco G. Giuseffi

Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was twofold: 1) to investigate the role the Socratic Method of teaching had (if any) on the leadership skills of Junior Reserve Officer Training Cadet (JROTC) leaders at a military boarding school in the Midwest, United States, and 2) to determine if there was any change in the researcher’s teaching while implementing the Socratic Method to his JROTC Cadet leaders in his Western Intellectual History class. The researcher defined leadership based on the Five Leadership Practices derived from the Student Leadership Practices Inventory. These practices consisted of Model the Way, Inspire a Shared …

Staff In Australia’S Schools 2013: Main Report On The Survey, Phillip Mckenzie, Paul R. Weldon, Glenn Rowley, Martin Murphy, Julie Mcmillan

School and system improvement

This report provides an overview of the results obtained from the Staff in Australia’s Schools (SiAS) 2013 survey commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Education and conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). The work was supported by an Advisory Committee of government and non-government school authorities and other stakeholder groups. The survey was intended to provide a detailed picture of the Australian teacher workforce, and to gather information to assist in future planning of the workforce. It was also designed to provide comparative and updated data following on from the previous SiAS surveys conducted in 2006-07 …

Investigating Practices Of Research-Proven Multidimensional Teacher Evaluation Systems In Michigan Schools, George A. Aramath

Dissertations

Traditional teacher evaluation systems have little to no impact on changing teacher behavior or improving student achievement. Subsequently, studies and reports show the lack of and need for multidimensional teacher evaluation system. This deficiency and need is especially evident in Michigan due to the state's recent legislative mandate that their evaluation system must include multiple data as measures of educator effectiveness.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and describe how two Michigan public schools are attempting to build a multidimensional teacher evaluation system that includes the new Michigan mandate to incorporate evidence of student learning as a significant …