Search results

The No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and Race to the Top (2009) led to the highest rate of standardized-state testing in the history of the United States of America. As a result, the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) aims to reevaluate standardized-state testing. Previous research has assessed its impact on schools, educators, and students; yet, youth’s voices are almost absent. Therefore, this qualitative analysis examines how youth of color perceive and experience standardized-state testing.

Seventy-three youth participated in a semistructured interview during the summer of 2015. The sample consists of 34 girls and 39 boys, 13–18 years of age, of African American, Latino/a, Jamaican American, multiracial/ethnic, and other descent. It includes 6–12th graders who attended 61 inter-district and intra-district schools during the 2014–2015 academic year in a Northeastern metropolitan area in the United States that is undergoing a racial/ethnic integration reform.

Youth experienced testing overload under conflicting adult authorities and within an academically stratified peer culture on an ever-shifting policy terrain. While the parent-adult authority remained in the periphery, the state-adult authority intrusively interrupted the teacher-student power dynamics and the disempowered teacher-adult authority held youth accountable through the “attentiveness” rhetoric. However, youth’s perspectives and lived experiences varied across grade levels, school modalities, and school-geographical locations.

In this adult-dominated society, the market approach to education reform ultimately placed the burden of teacher and school evaluation on youth. Most importantly, youth received variegated messages from their conflicting adult authorities that threatened their academic journeys.

The objective of this study was to compare three distinct methods of test monitoring in the context of distance education—non-proctored remote or online tests, traditional face-to-face proctored tests and remotely proctored tests using software—to analyze if the method in which tests are monitored influences the obtained grades.

The experiment was carried out at the postgraduate level in the Master's Degree in Administration program in the modality of distance education, with a total of 296 students during three terms wherein the monitoring method of the final exam varied, keeping the other variables constant. This study used a quantitative method in which the distribution of grades was analyzed; and the grades from each method were tested. Finally, using a multiple linear regression model with dichotomous variables, the impact on students' academic performance with each method was quantified.

The results indicated that the remotely proctored online test grades were seven points lower with respect to the traditional method. This result does not mean that the lower scores in the remote proctored condition were due to better adherence to academic honesty, maybe this could be due to test anxiety, technology interference or a number of other factors that would confound the validity of the final test score.

The results indicated that the non-proctored online test favored the grade in four points with respect to the traditional method.

The authors conclude to support recommending non-proctored online test, this can be a closer substitute to the traditional method than remote application with software monitoring.

Not exist another paper to compare three distinct methods of test monitoring in the context of distance education.

Recent major changes in the form and content tested on the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam have necessitated a re-examination of the relevance of undergraduate accounting coursework to CPA exam performance. Using data on candidates who attended an AACSB-accredited business school in the United States and who took the exam during the period 2005–2013, the authors examine whether the grades that candidates earned in relevant accounting course work affected their performance on related sections of the CPA exam. The authors find that student grades in related courses were positively associated with exam scores for all sections of the exam. This indicates that, despite changes to the exam and accounting education generally, an accounting curriculum can help prepare candidates to pass this critical barrier to entry in the accounting profession. The authors believe the results of this study have important implications for practitioners, academics, and candidates seeking to better understand the determinants of performance on this important professional examination.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the number of lecture-free and exam-free days before a final exam affects students’ scores overall and by gender.

The paper exploits scheduling differences in final exams between two groups of students who take identical final exams. The treatment group and the control group have similar exam spacing for one “early exam,” but the treatment group has four additional days between exams for another “later exam,” allowing for a difference-in-differences analysis. A survey of contemporary students is conducted to complement the empirical results.

Overall, there are no statistically significant differences in the grades on the exams between the control group and the group that had four more study days. When examined by gender, the point estimate on females is large in magnitude but statistically insignificant at conventional levels (p-value=0.087).

The study uses data on undergraduate students studying economics in Israel. More research in other contexts is needed to determine the robustness of the findings.

This is the first paper to study the effect of the number of days students have between final exams on student final exam scores. The results can aid in determining optimal final exam schedules.

This paper aims to study the relationship between students’ activities in the e-classroom and grades for the final exam. The study was conducted at the Faculty of Administration, University of Ljubljana among first-year undergraduate students. In the e-classroom, students learn new content for individual self-study, and their knowledge is checked with quizzes.

In the empirical study, the relationship between performance in quizzes and at the final exam was studied from two perspectives. First, successful and unsuccessful students (in terms of quizzes) were compared. Second, the Orange data mining software was used for two predictive modelling tasks. The research question was based on a student’s quiz performances, is it possible to predict whether the student will pass an exam and will the student’s grade for the exam be good.

The empirical results indicate a very strong connection between a student’s performance in quizzes and their score for the final exam in the course. Significant differences in performance were found between students who had completed most quizzes and those who had not. Moreover, the results highlighted which quizzes, in other words topics, are most important for passing an exam or obtaining a better grade. Therefore, the quality of individual study in the e-classroom positively influences a student’s performance.

The paper is the first to assess the impact of students’ activities on learning outcomes in undergraduate public administration programmes by applying a data mining approach.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the individual difference of other orientation affects the rational calculation between team input and anticipated performance.

Data were collected from 222 junior and senior level undergraduate business students. Of those students, 176 chose to take a scheduled exam as a team endeavour. Individuals were the unit of analysis in order to determine the individuals' motivation for working in teams. Other orientation was measured using the Comparative Emphasis Scale (CES). Students were asked to report their anticipated exam grade and anticipated total team hours studied. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to determine the main effects and moderation.

Other orientation moderated the relationship between the decision to take an exam with a teammate and anticipated performance. Other orientation also moderated the relationship between the anticipated amount of effort studying and anticipated performance. In both situations, business students with higher levels of other orientation calculated the rational cost‐benefit relationship less than business students with lower levels of other orientation.

The findings will help educators and managers understand the process by which individuals prefer to work in teams and the perceptions of increased performance when working in a team.

The study extends the theoretical application of other orientation into the team performance context. The moderating effect of other orientation on the relationship between team input and performance has been studied for the first time and is documented in this paper.

The CIA designation continues to gain acceptance within the internal auditing profession. One of the goals of the IIA is to globalize the certification. Many view exam preparation as excellent foundation training. The designation is more often seen as a job requirement or a promotion requirement. Assists candidates in developing a comprehensive, efficient, effective exam strategy. The exam guidelines set forth include: status evaluation, planning, preparation and test‐taking. Proposes that this approach should minimize preparation time and maximize success.

This paper aims to compare the students enrolled to a three-year undergraduate, bachelor degree on Security of Computer Systems and Networks, offered in traditional, classroom fashion as well as online at the University of Milan (Italy). Its main purposes are to estimate the main characteristics of the two different student populations addressed (i.e. online vs classroom students) to understand if an online version of an already existing traditional university degree allows to extend the enrollment of students; and to evaluate the effectiveness of the e-learning approach adopted, comparing performance of the two student populations. The study aims to supply a significant case study, based on a real experience more than 10 years long.

The paper is based on the statistical interpretation of a huge amount of data, collected during the overall life of Sicurezza dei Sistemi e delle Reti Informatiche (SSRI) online, regarding student age, income, grades obtained in exams and after final dissertation and graduation time.

The paper allows to conclude that the online student population has very limited overlap with the classroom one, which means that the online version of an already existing degree can definitely enlarge the student enrollment and reach older students; and a carefully designed e-learning environment allows committed online students to obtain results comparable when not better than the ones of classroom students.

The study refers to a single, specific degree in computer science and technology; thus, it may lack generalizability. Similar experiences in other areas could be useful.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how e-learning can be successfully applied to already existing traditional university degrees.

Previous studies on the associations between approaches to studying and outcomes have been conducted largely in Europe, where participants have been largely undergraduate-level students. The purpose of this study is to examine the associations between study approaches and academic outcomes of graduate occupational therapy students in the USA.

In this study, 120 masters- and doctoral-level occupational therapy students in their first and second study year in a large metropolitan city completed the short version of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST). A total of 18 items from the full 52-items version comprise the short version of the ASSIST, with 6 items belonging to each of the deep, strategic and surface scales. Associations between the study approach scales and exam grades were analyzed with single and multiple logistic regression analyses.

There was a direct association between the use of strategic studying and higher grade point average. Thus, students who want to perform well academically are encouraged to use study behaviours comprised by the strategic approach to studying.

This study appears to be the first to examine associations between study approaches and academic performance among occupational therapy students in the US context. More research on the study approaches of US American students is warranted.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a classroom design for introductory financial accounting that promotes active learning through a flipped classroom approach. A course learning management system, white-board voice-over video applications, an online homework manager and online tutorials pre-packaged with the course textbook were all adopted to facilitate the flipped classroom. The in-class sessions were refocussed around active learning strategies, including case analysis, concept mapping, solving comprehensive problems, mini lectures with bookends, and small group discussions.

A quasi-experimental design, combined with student surveys, are utilized. A Wilcoxon rank-sum test is used to assess the significance of any difference in student performance between a lecture-based course (control group, n=92) and the flipped classroom course (experimental group, n=97). Student performance is measured based on final exams and overall course grades.

The results suggest that the flipped classroom improved student grade point averages, final exam performance, and pass rates. Both the stronger and weaker students benefited from the technologies and active learning strategies adopted in the flipped classroom.

This is the first known study to investigate the efficacy of promoting active learning in introductory financial accounting through a flipped classroom design. This study is valuable for accounting educators, and educators in other similarly technical disciplines, who seek to combat the high failure rates that typically plague complex, technical introductory courses.