BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH & TEACHING
Research and Development in Student Learning and Academic Assessment
Celebrating 25 years at BRT February 8, 2018 On a fateful spring day in 1991, a mutual friend introduced me to Dr. Gerald Tindal. As luck would have it, I was in need of work and Jerry was in need of someone to do data collection. It was a chance meeting that would begin not only a great working relationship but blossom into a wonderful opportunity to be part of a new and growing team of researchers. Fast forward twenty-five…
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NASP (February 13-16, 2018, Chicago, IL) The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) is a professional association that represents more than 25,000 school psychologists, graduate students, and related professionals throughout the United States and 25 other countries. The world’s largest organization of school psychologists, NASP works to advance effective practices to improve students’ learning, behavior, and mental health. Their vision is that all children and youth thrive in school, at home, and throughout life. Nurturing Preschool Minds: Teachers’ Perceptions of a…
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Spanish Language Vocabulary Measures, Grades 2-8, To Be Added in the Fall Thanks to all the teachers and students who assisted with piloting the Spanish Language Vocabulary items, we have sufficient data to enable us to assemble alternate forms for Benchmark Screening and Progress Monitoring so we can add these measures to the easyCBM District and Deluxe Edition systems this summer, in preparation for use next year. Once the measures are added to the system, students and teachers will be…
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A Validity Argument for a Mathematics Curriculum-Based Measure: Implications for Response to Intervention Decision-Making Within a response to intervention (RTI) framework, many schools initially group students into tiers on the basis of normative achievement. Using a screener and benchmarks with curriculum-based measurement (CBM), students are classified as being academically “at-risk” or not. In the current study, we present a validity argument for the use of a mathematics CBM as a classification tool within RTI and explore the relation between a…
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Estimating School Effects with a State Testing Program Using Transition Matrices For the past decade, the accountability model associated with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) emphasized proficiency on end of year tests; with Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) the emphasis on proficiency within statewide testing programs, though now integrated with other measures of student learning, nevertheless remains a primary metric for reporting achievement. We examine transition over categories across two years for three cohorts of middle school students as one…
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Tindal, G. (2017). Oral reading fluency: Outcomes from 30 years of research . (Technical Report No. 1701). Eugene, OR: Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon. This paper is about oral reading fluency, how it has been measured, the students who have been measured, and the outcomes that have been reported for both performance and progress. TechRpt_1701
Hasbrouck, J., Tindal, G. (2017). An update to compiled ORF norms. (Technical Report No. 1702). Eugene, OR: Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon. This paper describes the origins of the widely used curriculum-based measure of oral reading fluency (ORF) and how the creation and use of ORF norms has evolved over time. TechRpt_1702
Exploring the Robustness of a Unidimensional Item Response Theory Model with Empirically Multidimensional Data Unidimensionality and local independence are two common assumptions of item response theory. The former implies that all items measure a common latent trait, while the latter implies that responses are independent, conditional on respondents’ location on the latent trait. Yet, few tests are truly unidimensional. Unmodeled dimensions may result in test items displaying dependencies, which can lead to misestimated parameters and inflated reliability estimates. In this…
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Julie Alonzo , Co-Director of BRT, was recently selected to attend the 2017 Summer Research Training Institute on sequential multiple assignment randomized trials (SMARTs). SMART designs are recommended for use in the development and evaluation of adaptive interventions, in which interventions are adapted when evidence suggests that adaptations are needed to better meet the needs of the individual receiving the interventions. The Summer Research Institute, funded by the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) in the Institute of Education…
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AERA (April 27th – May 1st, 2017 San Antonio, TX) The American Educational Research Association (AERA), founded in 1916, is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results. Examining the Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of a Large-scale Kindergarten Entry Assessment. Irvin, P. S., Tindal, G., & Slater, S.