Food insecurity is characterized by the consumption of low quantity or quality foods, worrying about food supply and/or acquiring foods through socially unacceptable means (Alaimo et al., 2001). Food insecurity is associated with poor physical and mental health putting food insecure students at an increased risk of low performance on standardized assessments (Howard, 2011). This mixed methods study aimed at establishing the relationship between food insecurity and EQAO examination performance in Ottawa, and describes the strategies used to mitigate the effects of food insecurity in schools. The results unveiled that while schools use community-based interventions and provide healthful eating education to parents, food insecurity remains associated to lower test scores on the EQAO grade 3 and grade 6 standardized examinations. As such, current interventions being used within schools in Ottawa are not adequately meeting the needs of food insecure students.

Over the past twenty years, there has been significant research conducted on the effects of large-scale standardized tests on academic achievement. Policy makers around the world have developed policies and allocated substantial sums of money in order to increase the frequency of large-scale standardized tests, although existing research offers inconclusive findings as to whether the use of large-scale standardized tests leads to higher achievement. This study was intended to empirically examine the use of standardized testing and its relationship with student achievement. The study focused on two questions: first, why do some nations require their students to take large-scale standardized tests more frequently than others? And second, is there a correlation between the frequency of large-scale standardized tests frequency and academic achievement? This study examined data from the 2003 and 2009 administrations of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in order to address these questions. Results from this study indicated the frequency of large-scale standardized tests is most likely to be associated with testing consequence or stake (e.g., data are made public, etc.). Additionally, results suggest that the frequency of large-scale standardized tests is not significantly related to academic achievement.

Since the passing of No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the United States' secondary education system has undergone significant changes. In this study, I discuss the ways in which the law has encouraged the normalization of standardized testing and aim to answer two primary research questions. RQ1: What do college students and their instructors identify as the key challenges that arise as students educated under NCLB begin college coursework, and how does each group address these challenges? RQ2: What strategies do the actors and spect-actors in a Forum Theatre production arrive at for addressing the challenges faced by college instructors and their students who have completed their secondary education under No Child Left Behind? To answer the initial research question, I conducted focus group interviews with instructors and students at the University of North Texas to understand the challenges each faces in the classroom. To answer the second research question, I compiled narratives from the focus group interviews along with other materials into a performance script that concluded with scenarios based in Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre techniques. In live performance events audience members rehearsed strategies for addressing the challenges that instructors and students face in classrooms through performance. Following descriptions of the performances, I analyze the scenarios through theories of Michel Foucault and Paulo Freire, to understand the productive power of the banking model reflected in the suggestions from the audience.

Since the days of Horace Mann, standardized testing has been used as a control mechanism by policy makers to determine who makes decisions about what will happen in public schools. A dynamic struggle for educational control and governance has continued since that time between the local, state, and federal levels. This struggle for control puts school principals in a unique organizational position where they are expected to use standardized tests within the school community with teachers, students, and parents to improve education but at the same time manage external accountability mandates from district, state and federal levels of governance. To further complicate the testing picture, multiple stakeholders from diverse backgrounds write about standardized testing, making the testing literature complex and seemingly contradictory. These competing narratives create distractions and confusion in the standardized testing debate. The purposes of this archival study was to (a) explore the literature about standardized testing to find patterns in the narratives that are being told in the disciplines of education, policy, economics, psychology/psychometry, and history; and, (b) analyze those narratives to determine what major themes emerged from each discipline so that principals can better understand the testing landscape. In each source we tracked first-author characteristics, one of which was author academic disciplinary background—the academic discipline the author primarily trained in during their formal education. With a better understanding of these disciplinary narratives, a principal is in a stronger position to understand and communicate more effectively about standardized testing within their school community, as well as manage the demands from external influences. This study used NVivo software to organize and analyze text from 147 documents from authors representing the five different disciplinary backgrounds. These documents were written by proponents and critics of testing. Patterns emerged that confirm that using standardized testing as a control mechanism is one of the most common themes in the testing literature. Each narrative is influential in unique ways, but the most important finding of this study shows that the two loudest narratives are those from education and policy. Both disciplines often focus on the reality that standardized testing is used as a control mechanism. Authors from the discipline of education wrote about this topic from a reactive and defensive position. Educators dominate the professional literature, but don't have nearly as strong of a voice in the mainstream media. On the other hand, the analysis demonstrated that authors in the realm of public policy write about standardized testing in a proactive and assertive tone, and they have a stronger voice in mainstream media. Understanding all five narratives can enable principals to more effectively and proactively take control of the standardized testing narrative in their own school community.

The expressive language tasks of the Test of Narrative Language (Gillam & Pearson, 2004) were administered to eleven deaf, native signers and fifteen English-speaking hearing children who were between the ages of six and ten years old. These tasks were administered to determine the appropriateness of this measure for use with special populations and bring to light new information about children's narrative development and the differences in the language modalities of these two groups. Also, the application of this information on future testing of deaf populations is examined. The eleven native signers came from a single residential school for the deaf, and all had deaf parents. The fifteen hearing children were recruited from a private school and through associates of the primary investigator. The tasks were administered according to the TNL manual's protocol and script, with the primary investigator speaking English for the hearing children and a native signer using American Sign Language for the deaf children. Their narratives in these tasks were coded according to the standards of the test and examined: factual story comprehension, story retell abilities (and inclusion of target terms), story generation from a picture sequence, and story generation from a single picture scene. This study found that though the hearing group outperformed the deaf group on each task's raw score, the specific subcategories of "Grammar" and "Story" from the picture sequence-based story generation task, and the "Characters" and "Vocabulary and Grammar" coding of the single picture-based generation task showed ASL users as having stronger narrative skills as a whole. Specific target items from the story retell also proved differentially problematic for the ASL group and should be altered in future utilization of the TNL with deaf children. In the future, the need for appropriate and representative testing of deaf children's narrative skills should take a higher priority, and greater understanding of the differences between ASL and English will be desired for both test creators and those testing deaf children. / text

This experiment examined decisions made by teachers using only status data with those made by teachers using growth and status data. Middle school math teachers from five schools within a single school division located in Virginia participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to either the status only or growth and status group. They were then asked to analyze a sample set of class data and complete a survey in which they rated the success of four types of students, identified teacher strengths and weaknesses, and rated their confidence in and the usefulness of the data received. Teachers with access to growth and status data differed significantly in their ratings of three of the four types of students. Students with high growth/low achievement were rated more favorably by teachers with growth and status data (p < .05). Students with low growth/high achievement and those with low growth/low achievement were rated less favorably by teachers with access to growth and status data (p < .05). Teachers with access to growth and status data also chose different strengths and weaknesses than those with access to only status data. Teachers did not differ significantly in their confidence in the data or the perceived usefulness of the data, although limitations may have influenced this finding.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / The purpose of this study was to understand beginning teachers’ experiences with learning to teach in an educational system that puts intense pressure on teachers to prepare students for standardized tests. The situation is common in many developed and developing countries whose educational systems are run by policies grounded in neoliberal and human capital ideologies. Using a phenomenological research design, I explored teachers’ experiences in two very different educational systems, the United States and South Korea, and focused on the commonalities and differences of their experiences of learning to teach. I recruited four secondary-school teachers (two English and two mathematics) who had been teaching fewer than three years from each country. I conducted a series of three phenomenological interviews with each teacher in his or her native language, following the guidelines set out by Irving Seidman (2012). My analysis suggested that, although there were many differences between US and Korean teachers’ lived experiences in the context of test-based accountability, the groups were primarily similar. Both novice teachers in the United States and Korea faced significant conflicts between their prior beliefs about good teaching and the educational system that demanded them to teach to tests. All teachers in this study described experiencing various levels of frustration with having to teach to the tests, which was not their preferred approach to teaching. While struggling to meet the demands of their test-based accountability systems, the beginning teachers in this study established firm student-centered beliefs and strived to integrate practices that were consistent with their beliefs. The findings suggest that support in the form of policies and teacher education is necessary to promote teachers’ constant learning and growth in the challenging context of test-based accountability. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree of correlation between the Scantron Achievement Series (SAS) benchmark assessment in reading and the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) test in reading in fourth grade students. The goal was to identify the predictive validity of the SAS benchmark instrument. The study included fourth grade students who had taken the SAS and TCAP reading sections during the school years of 2011- 2013. The study was quantitative. Data were collected from a school system in northeast Tennessee with 12 elementary schools. Three of the elementary schools did not qualify for Title I funds but the other 9 schools were Title I funded schools. Data collection tools used in the study included results from the TCAP test using the paper-and-pencil format and the SAS using a computerbased test. Student scaled scores were used for determining the degree of correlation between the TCAP test and SAS assessment. This study was used to examine any correlation between the TCAP and SAS tests used with fourth grade student in Tennessee. The effect was determined by how closely the tests were correlated across gender, race, socioeconomic status, and school Title-I status. The results show that the TCAP and SAS test scores have a strong positive correlation: Both assessments consistently showed that female students scored significantly higher than male students, Students in Non-Title I schools scored significantly higher than those in Title I funded schools, There was no significant difference in scores based on race (Black or White), and There was no significant difference in scores based on socioeconomic status.

The purpose of this study was to compare final grades of dual enrollment students in English Composition I (ENGL 1010) and College Algebra (MATH 1130) at VSCC. The study focused on whether students admitted to these courses using COMPASS Writing and/or Math scores are as successful as students admitted to these courses using ACT English and/or Math subscores. Additionally, the researcher examined whether there were differences related to gender and race-ethnicity for each course by entry method. Final courses grades were used to determine success. The population consisted of 4,156 dual enrollment students and was broken down into 2 groups: ACT-admitted dual enrollment students and COMPASS-admitted dual enrollment students. For this study 5,138 dual enrollment grades were used in calculations. Chi-square tests were used to determine significance in the final grades of both groups of students. The quantitative findings revealed no significant difference between ACT-admitted students and COMPASS-admitted students when comparing final grades in English Composition. There was a significant difference within the two groups when comparing final grades in College Algebra with ACT-admitted students scoring significantly higher grades than COMPASS-admitted students. Additionally, findings indicated COMPASS-admitted females scored more grades of A than ACT-admitted females in English Composition while ACT-admitted males earned more grades of A than COMPASS-admitted females. The difference was significant in College Algebra with both ACT-admitted females and males being at least twice as likely as COMPASS-admitted females and males to score grades of A. While there was no significant difference when comparing final grades between the white ACT-admitted students and white COMPASS-admitted students in English, significance did exist for the White students in College Algebra. White ACT-admitted students had significantly higher percentages of grades of A than white COMPASS-admitted students in College Algebra. Lastly, although data could not be analyzed for non-Whites in English Composition or College Algebra, when reviewing the percentages for both courses, ACT-admitted students’ A grade percentages were higher.

There were five main purposes for the current thesis: (1) to address the need for more quantitative studies to evaluate student academic success within the inclusive classroom setting; (2) to apply a recently released program assessment rubric for special education services to determine the level of special education service delivery in the specified location; (3) to evaluate the reliability of the results of the rubric mandated by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education (2008); (4) to compare the results of the standardized student achievement tests with the rubric results in relation to program effectiveness; and (5) to investigate potential confounding factors related to the current study design. The goal of this thesis was to provide information to the Living Sky School Division and to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education on the implementation and success of the inclusion model in a rural Saskatchewan setting. In addition, results were intended to provide information on assessment instruments employed in the measurement of program effectiveness. The analysis was conducted as a mixed-methods case study that included two parts: (1) the first assessment indicated that students with learning difficulties scored significantly higher on standardized academic achievement measures while in an inclusive setting as opposed to scores while in a pullout setting; and (2) the second assessment determined that special education service delivery was <i>emerging/developing</i> to <i>evident</i>. The correlation coefficient of rubric results was calculated at á = .69. A variety of general measurement issues, including small sample size and use of historical data, in relation to the current study design, were discussed.