Student Test Performance Research Articles

An Organization Device for Visualizing Mechanisms and Regiochemistry Rationales in Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution

Design and testing of a hand-held device, consisting of two sheets of card stock, presenting electrophilic aromatic substitution (EAS) data in an organized fashion, and designed to facilitate learning electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions is reported. The device includes a large amount of information with similar data grouped, and the groups are juxtaposed in order to facilitate pattern recognition and differentiation. This, in turn, facilitates visualization, retention, understanding, and use of the data presented. One sheet is placed over the other in order to visualize the mechanism between the substituted aromatic compound selected and the chosen reagent. It shows two aspects of EAS on separate pages and, then, demonstrates interactively how they interrelate. The two aspects are (1) the substitution itself, including the identity of the electrophile, the reagent(s) needed to generate it, and the substituent in the product and (2) the electronic effects of the groups in the aromatic compounds upon the intermediate(s) and the structure of the product. The effect of the use of the Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution Tool (also known as EAS-at-a-Glance) on the test performance of students enrolled in undergraduate organic chemistry was determined by a post-test-only control-group study. The subject samples were assigned to a control group and three device groups, differing with respect to use of the device. Results show that the EAS Tool enabled a better student performance (by 12.3% to 17.3%, depending upon the method of use), and that the best method of use is as an out-of-class supplement.

Teaching Is Learning—Maximum Incentive, Minimum Discipline in Student Groups Teaching General Chemistry

A novel form of teaching and test scoring has been developed, in which student group work and test performance are linked to bonus points on weekly quizzes. A class of 71 students was divided into 12 groups of five or six students. The groups taught sections of a general chemistry class, and their test grades were adjusted upward on the basis of the scores achieved for each quiz or test. The scoring technique involves the possibility of only upward adjustments, to maximize positive reinforcement for good test performance. Work requirements resulting from this technique, for both the students and the faculty member, are discussed.

The effect of changes in test item sequence on student performance in multiple choice tests for baccalaureate nursing students.

The effect of changes in test item sequence on student performance in multiple choice tests for baccalaureate nursing students.

A comparison of Web page and slide/tape for instruction in periapical and panoramic radiographic anatomy

Self-guided slide/tape (ST) and web page (WP) instruction in normal radiographic anatomy of periapical and panoramic images is compared using objective test performance and subjective preference of freshman dental students. A class of seventy-four students was divided into a group studying anatomy in periapical images using WP and a group studying similar ST material. In a modified cross-over design the groups switched presentation technologies to learn anatomy in panoramic images. Students completed self-administered on-line quizzes covering WP materials and conventional quizzes for ST material. Students also completed a voluntary survey. Mean quiz performance identifying matched anatomic features in PA (n = 26) and panoramic images (n = 35) was excellent (96.9%) and not different between image types (p = 0.12) or presentation technologies (p = 0.81). Students preferred WP for accessibility, ease of use, freedom of navigation, and image quality (p < .01). Student comfort level with the quiz formats of the two technologies was not different (p = 0.11). Students experienced a higher rate of mechanical and logistical problems with ST than with WP technology. While 71 percent of the students preferred WP technology, this preference appears to be related to ease of use and facilitation of flexible learning styles rather than improved didactic performance.

Schooling Resources, Educational Institutions, and Student Performance: The International Evidence

The paper suggests that international differences in educational institutions explain the large international differences in student performance in cognitive achievement tests. A microeconometric student-level estimation based on data from 39 countries reveals that positive effects on student performance stem from centralized examinations and control mechanisms, school autonomy in personnel and process decisions, competition from private educational institutions, parent involvement, scrutiny of achievement, and teacher influence on teaching methods. A large influence of teacher unions on curriculum scope has negative effects on student performance. The findings imply that international differences in student performance are not caused by differences in schooling resources but are mainly due to differences in educational institutions.

Effects of Noninformational Color on the Reading Test Performance of Students with and without Attentional Deficits

Students with attentional deficits are better able to maintain attention to tasks if novelty is added, especially during later trials. In this study, we assessed generality to a standardized reading test when noninformational color was added to one of two altemate forms, counterbalanced for order of condition and form. Participants were 25 third- to fifth-grade students with and without attentional deficits. Students with attentional deficits: (a) read as accurately as their classmates with color added (during a first test administration and across sessions), (b) read worse in the black-white condition, and (c) improved reading accuracy during the second test administration with color added (i.e., all other groups showed a decline in performance). Because the noninformational color did not change test difficulty (i.e., by altering the discriminability of task-relevant features), the implications of these findings may be more accurate assessment of the performance of students with attentional deficits.

IPM—A Problem-based Learning Approach

The Cal Poly philosophy of “Learn and Understand by Doing” has been integrated with problem-based learning and the use of the latest technology to produce a class that closely simulates real-life pest control situations. Goals of the class, Disease and Pest Control Systems for Ornamental Plants, are to teach students pest monitoring, control and problem solving techniques, the use of resources including the internet and journals, and the use of the latest pest control equipment and application techniques. Students are shown pest situations and then work in groups to diagnose the problem, investigate management strategies, apply control measures, and monitor results. Weekly class presentations inform the class of the various projects and help to teach the class organization and presentation skills. Student evaluations and test performance have demonstrated that students achieve class objectives substantially better with the problem-based learning approach than with the previous lecture-based approach to the class.

Introduction and Overview: Assessment in the Context of Culture and Pedagogy: A Collaborative Effort, a Meaningful Goal

Over the past few years, we educators and educational researchers have been repeatedly compelled to extend our thinking beyond traditional views of instruction, curriculum, student assessment, and the assessment of teachers. When these essential elements of education are required to seriously integrate the multidimensional variables associated with educating children and adults of color as well as facilitate these learners' academic achievement, the complexity of our work increases exponentially. There is little doubt that the assessment of students and teachers alike will play a pivotal role in determining whether our nation's educational system will meet the academic, social, and economic needs of disenfranchised cultural groups in the 21st century. As the call for the escalation of testing continues at the federal, state, and local levels, it is also necessary for us to increase our diligence in refining existing assessments and exploring the development of new ones. The traditional and emerging forms of assessment tools used to assess students' achievement and teachers' preparedness to teach, as well as the progress teachers make in refining their craft, can no longer afford to ignore the relevance of culture. The discussions and activities surrounding modern performancebased assessments have created yet another opportunity to meaningfully address assessment in the context of culture. The increasing notoriety and perceived potential of these new types of assessments as being more fair than traditional standardized tests makes more scholarly inquiry imperative. Further, we must address the fundamental matter of how these types of assessments can be developed and validated. JNE Editor-in-Chief Sylvia Johnson, in her comments prefacing this issue, has already provided the chronology detailing how the idea for this special issue emerged from a symposium (convened by the guest editor) at the 1997 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. The panelists for that symposium (myself, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Gwyneth Boodoo, Carol Lee, Audrey Qualls, and Renee Smith-Maddox) sought to initiate a preliminary discussion on building bridges between culturally responsive pedagogy and performance-based assessment. The panelists felt that it was necessary for us to think out loud and engage in professional discourse about whether the notion of culturally responsive pedagogy could be manifested in such testing. We all understood the magnitude of the concerns as well as the questions, criticisms, and challenges that awaited us in such an endeavor. Our collective professional experiences, however, had given us considerable insights about culturally responsive pedagogy, educational assessment, and test development and validation. Though we openly admitted that we did not have answers to many of the technical questions and concerns about developing and validating culturally responsive assessments, we strongly believed that one point made sense: If assessment items and performance tasks are grounded in the cultural context of a particular group of color, those examinees may have a better chance of showing competence in certain learning areas. Further, such items and tasks may be able to more accurately identify the deficiencies of examinees of color in these areas. Estrin (1993) and Miller-Jones (1989) provide a valuable grounding for this discussion on assessment in the context of culture. Miller-Jones asserts that the differential test performance of students from culturally diverse backgrounds may largely result more from preferences in or differential access to cognitive modes than to any particular deficiency in the students' academic knowledge or skills. He raises the possibility of addressing this concern by developing items and tasks that are functionally equivalent or congruent with the examinees' cultural points of view. Estrin is more adamant about the importance of culture in assessment, claiming that it is impossible to fully understand a student's performance on any assessment without considering their language and culture. …

The Effects of Extended Time on Algebra Test Scores for College Students With and Without Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of extended time on the algebra test performance of community college students with and without learning disabilities. Forty-four students with learning disabilities and 44 students without learning disabilities attending five California community colleges participated in the study. The students each took an algebra test under timed conditions and a comparable test under extended-time conditions. The main results were that the students with learning disabilities scored significantly lower than the students without learning disabilities under timed conditions, the scores of the students with learning disabilities increased significantly with extended time, and the scores of the students with learning disabilities under extended-time conditions did not differ significantly from the timed or extended-time scores of the students without learning disabilities.

Relation of Parental Involvement, Empowerment, and School Traits to Student Academic Performance

Abstract School-level data on parent perceptions and structural characteristics of 42 elementary schools were used to examine the relation of parental involvement and empowerment to student academic performance. Results showed that measures of parental involvement and empowerment could be reliably predicted. Multiple regression analyses showed that parental involvement and empowerment accounted for substantial variance in student standardized test performance (lowest R 2 = 25% and 5%, respectively). Positive relations of parental involvement to student test performance were largely unaffected by school characteristics or the socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic composition of the student population.

Appropriate Test Preparation: Can We Reach a Consensus?

Although standardized tests have been in use for years, there is a lack of consensus about what constitutes appropriate student preparation for testing. Popham (1991) demonstrated that teachers and administrators view preparation in different ways and noted that there is considerable diversity of opinion about which practices are appropriate and inappropriate. Other researchers have attempted to create standards or guidelines for determining appropriate testing practice, but these do not appear to capture the diversity of teacher-initiated preparation. Do teachers and testing specialists see preparation in the same way? What practices fall into the grey area of being not appropriate but not necessarily unethical? This study examines eight categories (40 practices) of preparation or teacher intervention to maximize student test performance. Teachers (N = 42) and testing specialists (N = 10) were asked to examine practices and determine how appropriate or inappropriate the practices were for a specified tes...

A Comparison of Achievement Test Performance of nondisabled Students Under Silent Reading and Reading Plus Listening Modes of Administration

Average performance on four subtests of the Iowa Tests of Educational Development was compared under two types of test administration. The first adhered to the publisher's standardized directions and time limits. The second permitted students to listen to audiotapes of the test material on individual cassette players as they read the test booklet. No time limits were imposed on the high school students under this second mode of administration. Each of the four subtests — Interpretation of Literary Materials, Analysis of Social Studies Materials, Use of Sources of Information, and Vocabulary-imposes substantial reading, demands on the examinee. Only on the literary materials test did students score significantly higher via the tape-assisted administration. Significant differential effects were found as a function of level of reading ability for this test and for the social studies test. Poor readers were helped by the use of the tapes, whereas good readers did not benefit from the use of the tapes. Correlations corrected for attenuation indicate that the two modes of administration measure essentially the same attributes when students exhibit no learning disabilities or reading problems.

Empirical comparison of alternative instructional TV technologies

An experiment was conducted to compare training effectiveness and user acceptance of live instruction andsix different alternative Instructional TV (ITV) technologies: multi‐channel 2‐way video with 2‐way audio, single‐channel 2‐way video with 2‐way audio, 1‐way video with 2‐way audio, 1‐way video with 1‐way audio, 1‐way video with intermittent 2‐way audio, and audiographics. Findings were that, in comparison with live instruction, ITV in several different forms was effective both in terms of student performance and acceptance. The most successful ITV technologies were those allowing continuous 2‐way audio communication between classrooms with either 2‐way or 1‐way video. Student test performance was poorer with ITV systems that restricted remote students' ability to converse with or see the instructor and the performance decrement was evident in both local and remote classrooms. The research described was performed under the sponsorship of the Office of Naval Technology. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors, are not official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Navy department.

Correlates of the Academic Achievement of Adolescents with Behavioral Disorders

The purpose of this study was to identify the correlates and predictors of the academic achievement of adolescents with behavioral disorders. A series of standardized assessment instruments designed to measure locus of control, study skills, and academic achievement were individually administered to 86 11- to 15-year-old behaviorally disordered students. Special education teachers completed a rating scale assessing each student's academic school survival skills. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated between measures of survival skills, locus of control, and study skills and students’ achievement test scores and academic grade point average. Overall, student achievement test performance was significantly correlated with organizational skills and an internal locus of control orientation. IQ and organizational skills were identified as significant predictors of writing, arithmetic, reading, general facts, and overall academic achievement. Organizational skills was the only significant predictor of students’ special education grade point average. Two variables, organizational skills and age, were significant predictors of overall grade point average. No predictors were identified for mainstream grade point average.

Providing Item Feedback in Computer-Based Tests: Effects of Initial Success and Failure

This study investigated the effects of providing item feedback on student achievement test performance and anxiety, and how these effects may be moderated by the amount of success and students experience on the initial items of the test. Introductory statistics students were randomly assigned to six forms of a computer-based algebra test that differed in terms of (a) the difficulty of the first five items, and (b) the type of item feedback provided. Although test performance was not affected significantly by differences among the test forms, student anxiety levels were significantly increased when administered the test form using difficult initial items and providing item feedback along with a running score total. Implications for the use of item feedback in computer-based testing are discussed.

Effects of Student-Written Questions on Student Test Performance

Effects of student-written test questions on student test performance were examined in an Introductory Psychology class. Before each of three tests, randomly assigned students wrote essay questions, multiple-choice questions, or no questions. All tests contained essay and multiple-choice items but no questions written by students. Question writers performed significantly better than nonwriters on the first two tests; the difference on the third test was marginally significant. No differences were found between students who wrote essay and those who wrote multiple-choice questions. Question writing appears to be an effective study technique.

A Quantitative Procedure for the Identification of Effective Schools

AbstractThis paper outlines a quantitative procedure for identifying effective schools. Effective schools are defined as those schools that produce student test performance that departs markedly, in an upward direction, from pre-established school and district trends. The methodology for this procedure is described, and correlations of procedure results with important student enrollment and attendance statistics, teacher background variables, and previous and concurrent absolute levels of student achievement are discussed. Finally, the use of this procedure for rewarding outstanding schools is described.

College students' attitudes towards written versus oral tests of English as a Foreign Language

The major aim of the present research is twofold: (a) to compare students' atti tudes towards oral versus written English language test; and (b) to examine the nature of the relationship between students' affective dispositions toward lan guage tests and level of test performance. The study is based on a sample of 170 students at Haifa University enrolled in the advanced reading course of English as a foreign language. Students responded to an examinee feedback inventory specifically designed to gauge examinees' perceptions of key variables related to mode of test presentation (oral vs. written examinations). In addition, back ground information was collected on students' gender, sociolinguistic back ground, father's education, the university psychometric entrance examination (including the English proficiency test score), and average grade in department of study. On the whole, students preferred written over oral tests and rated the former more favourably along a variety of dimensions. Written tests were per ceived to be more pleasant, valuable, fair, less anxiety evoking and more reflec tive of students' comprehension of the English text than oral tests. Oral tests, on the other hand, were viewed to be more interesting to take than written tests. No meaningful relationship, however, was observed between students' atti tudes and test performance.

The Effects of Knowledge of Item Arrangement, Gender, and Statistical and Cognitive Item Difficulty on Test Performance

In two experiments the writers investigated the effects of statistical and cognitive difficulty ordering of test items, gender, and explicit labeling of item type on test performance of college students. Students were given tests with items written on various statistical and cognitive difficulty levels. In addition, some students received tests on which the items were explicitly labeled as to the cognitive difficulty (knowledge, comprehension, application) of the item. Analysis of the results indicated significant effects for gender and use of labels. Item ordering effects were not consistent across the two studies.

The Stability of School Effectiveness Indices Across Grade Levels and Subject Areas

School effectiveness indices (SEIs) based on regressing achievement test performance onto earlier test performance and a socioeconomic status (SES) measure were obtained for eight subject–grade level combinations for a large sample of elementary schools. School means based on longitudinally matched student scores comprised the data set used in the analysis. The resulting SEIs were found to be somewhat unstable across subject areas (reading and mathematics) and very unstable across grade levels (1 through 4). Grade‐to‐grade correlations of the SEIs measuring mathematics performance, although small, tended to be statistically significant, whereas those measuring reading performance were generally nonsignificant. Thus, school effects may be more readily discernible in some subject areas than in others. Implications for research on effective schools and for the design of school recognition programs based on student test performance are discussed.