Black middle school students in the United States perform poorly on standardized reading achievement tests in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a vocabulary-focused test preparation program for underachieving Black middle school students. Thorndike's concept of test-wiseness, a test-taking capacity, provided the theoretical foundation for the study. Research questions investigated the difference in reading test scores on the Discovery Education Assessment of underachieving Black middle school students who participated in a key vocabulary test preparation program and those who did not. An intact-group comparison was used in which the research site, a large urban middle school in Tennessee, was matched with a similar middle school. Teachers at the research site were trained on a test preparation strategy meant to familiarize students with key vocabulary terms related to test items. Participants were Black students in Grades 6, 7, and 8, who were enrolled in Title 1 supplementary reading instruction and scored below proficiency, with 405 students in the treatment group and 249 students in the control group. The post-intervention reading test scores on the Discovery Education Assessment were compared between the groups, with a baseline test score used as the covariate. The adjusted mean scores for both 6th and 7th grade students were significantly greater for the intervention group (p = .018 and p = .062 respectively), whereas there was no significant difference in test scores for 8th grade students (p = .246). Implications for positive social change include providing research-based findings to the study site that support the vocabulary-focused test preparation program to improve the reading achievement of Black middle school students.

To understand learners’ beliefs about language learning and strategy use in an EFL exit test environment, this study investigated Taiwanese university students’ language learning beliefs; EFL exit test beliefs; language learning, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies; the relationships among their beliefs and strategy use; and the differences in students’ beliefs and strategy use according to their major, gender, grade level, entrance exam English score, and EFL exit test experience. A total of 518 Taiwanese university students participated in the questionnaire study. Two major instruments were developed and used to measure students’ beliefs and strategy use in the Taiwanese EFL exit test context: (1) the Belief about Language Learning in an EFL Exit test Context (BALLIEETC), and (2) the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning in an EFL Exit test Context (SILLEETC). Analysis of the questionnaire data involved descriptive statistics, factor analysis, canonical correlation analysis, and multivariate analysis of variance. The questionnaire results suggested the following: (1) students believed in the importance of speaking English well, repeating and practicing, learning vocabulary words, acquiring excellent pronunciation, and correcting errors; (2) students primarily used memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies to learn English, prepare for the EFL exit test, and take the test; (3) students’ beliefs were associated with their strategy use; (4) English majors had stronger beliefs and higher levels of strategy use than non-English majors; (5) students with higher entrance exam English scores had stronger beliefs and higher levels of strategy use than those of lower scores; (6) college seniors believed more in foreign language aptitude and use test-taking strategies more often than freshmen; (7) students who had taken and passed an EFL exit test had stronger beliefs and higher levels of strategy use than those who had not taken a test. The results of this study support an association between learners’ beliefs and strategy use. Understanding students’ beliefs about language learning and the EFL exit test, as well as their use of language-learning, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies, may enable EFL teachers to help students develop effective language learning, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies and improve their English abilities and EFL exit test performance. The field of second language acquisition may also benefit from insights into students’ beliefs and their use of strategies in an EFL exit test environment. The EFL exit test may affect students’ beliefs about language learning and strategy use, such as their having stronger beliefs about the importance of vocabulary and higher levels of memory strategy use. / text

While student populations are growing, the gatekeeping devices of teacher certification examinations prevent many who want and are trained to teach from entering the profession. If failing these exams predicted failure to teach well, blocking students who do not pass certification exams from entering the profession might be a well-reasoned policy. However, many studies indicate that there is little correlation between certification test scores and quality of teaching. The present study investigated the effectiveness of a program to improve the scores of Texas elementary preservice teachers on a required certification exam. The program consisted of one-on-one coaching of preservice teachers upon the completion of coursework and prior to their taking the state's certification exam. Subjects' scores on a representative form of the certification test were used as pre-treatment measures. The content of the treatment program was individualized for each subject and determined by the specific items missed by each subject on the representative form. The post-treatment measure was the subject's score on the certification exam. Scores on the representative form and on the certification examination were compared to determine if there were significant differences between scores of preservice teachers who had been coached and those who were not coached. Since subjects voluntarily enrolled in the treatment, initial differences between coached and uncoached groups were controlled through analysis of covariance and pairwise matching. Descriptive statistics, t-tests for dependent samples, repeated measures analysis of variance, and univariate analyses of variance and covariance all indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the scores on the certification test of coached and uncoached students. Coached students showed greater improvement in scores than uncoached, with Hispanic subjects showing greater improvement than Caucasian subjects. Analyses that examined the differences between the coached and uncoached subjects on the domain and competency scores that make up the raw scores failed to indicate the sources of the differences in raw scores.

No description available.

No description available.

Hur policyförändringar, som fler nationella prov och tidigare betyg, kan komma till uttryck i verksamheten utforskas i denna studie. Syftet är att undersöka hur några elever i läs- och skrivsvårigheter/dyslexi beskriver sina erfarenheter av att göra nationella läsprov i svenska i årskurs 6. Det empiriska materialet har inhämtats genom halvstrukturerade intervjuer med fyra elever i årskurs 6, som nyligen har genomfört proven. Resultatet, som har analyserats ur ett policy enactment perspektiv, visar att eleverna beskriver proven som mycket viktiga, då de tror att proven har en stor betydelse för deras betyg i svenska. Eleverna har förberetts inför proven i skolan genom undervisning i läsförståelsestrategier, genom att öva på gamla prov och genom att titta på bedömningsexempel. De har också förberett sig själva inför provsituationen på olika sätt. Eleverna har olika erfarenheter av anpassningar vid proven och de som har haft anpassningar ställer sig positiva till det. Eleverna upplevde stress och nervositet i varierande grad, främst innan proven. Skilda specialpedagogiska perspektiv framträder i hur skolor hanterar frågor om förberedelser och anpassningar av de nationella proven. Hur lärare och elever tolkar policy får betydelse för eleverna i samband proven. / How changes in policy, as more national tests and earlier grades, can be expressed in school settings are explored in this study. The aim is to examine how some students in reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia describe their experiences of doing national reading tests in Swedish in Grade 6. The empirical material has been collected through semi-structured interviews with four students in Grade 6, who recently have conducted the tests. The results have been analyzed from a policy enactment perspective and show that students describe the tests as very important, since they believe that the tests have a significant impact on their grades in Swedish. Students have been prepared for the tests in school by teaching of reading comprehension strategies, by practicing on old tests and by looking at assessment examples. Students have also prepared themselves for the test situation in different ways. They have different experiences regarding adjustments during the tests and the students who have had adjustments express positive feelings about them. The students experienced stress and anxiety in varying degrees, mostly before the tests. Separate perspectives of special education emerge in how schools deal with issues as preparation and adjustments of the national tests. How teachers and students interpret policy seems to be an important factor in students’ situations associated to the tests.