Pathways of mathematics achievement in preschool: Examining executive function and task orientation
This study used longitudinal data from a sample of 467 preschoolers to examine (1) if children’s executive function (EF) skills at the beginning of pre-K predict growth in their mathematics achievement across the pre-K year, (2) whether growth in learning behaviors, specifically task orientation, mediate the associations between EF and mathematics achievement, and (3) if there are sex differences in these associations.
By: Tara Hofkens, Jessica Whittaker, Robert Pianta, Virginia Vitiello, Erik Ruzek, Arya Ansari
Topics: Early learning, Math & STEM
Four-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States, but little is known about their implementation or their effects on students. This study uses district-level data from Oklahoma to provide estimates of the causal effect of the 4-day school week on high school students’ ACT scores, attendance, and disciplinary incidents during school.
By: Emily Morton
The COVID-19 school year: Learning and recovery across 2020-2021
This study uses test scores from 4.9 million U.S. students in Grades 3 through 8 to examine the academic disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic by modeling student achievement trends prior to and during the pandemic, with particular focus on growth in 2020-2021.
By: Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland, Karyn Lewis, Erik Ruzek, Angela Johnson
Topics: Equity, COVID-19 & schools
This study compared the test taking disengagement of students taking a remotely administered an adaptive interim assessment in spring 2020 with their disengagement on the assessment administered in-school during fall 2019.
By: Steven Wise, Megan Kuhfeld, John Cronin
Topics: Equity, Innovations in reporting & assessment, School & test engagement
This study evaluates the effects of asking items throughout the passage (i.e., embedding items) to achieve a more precise measure of reading comprehension by removing barriers for students to demonstrate their understanding. Results showed a significant impact of embedding comprehension items within reading passages on the measurement of student achievement in comparison to answering items at the end of the passage.
By: Meg Guerreiro, Janice Johnson
Topics: Equity, Innovations in reporting & assessment, Reading & language arts
The instructional legacy of COVID-19: Teacher adaptation in response to the pandemic
This study investigated teacher adaptation to the changes in teaching conditions caused by the transition to distance learning in the COVID-19 pandemic.
By: Helena Connolly, Naina Abowd, Catherine C. Chase
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Empowering educators
This study examines the text quality of math assessment items for students with VI who use screen readers. Using data from about 29.5 million students taking standard versions of the MAP Growth math assessment, and 48,845 students taking accessible versions, we identified high-quality items, those that measured achievement for both students with and without VI equally well, and low-quality items, which showed differences between the two groups of students.
By: Kang Xue, Elizabeth Barker
Topics: Accessibility, Equity, Math & STEM