Daniel McCaffrey

Postsecondary-level writing challenges students and the instructors who teach it. In this project, the researchers addressed this challenge by exploring writing skills and achievement, the malleable factors that predict writing quality, and their links to postsecondary success. The researchers explored three different factors or predictors of writing quality. The first was writing domain knowledge, such as use of correct writing conventions (grammar, spelling, etc.), topic development and co...

Test scores are instrumental in education research and decision making. They are being used for a growing number of high-stakes decisions about students, teachers, and schools, and to measure the effectiveness of education policies and interventions. In observational studies where treatment and control groups of students typically differ on attributes related to achievement, test scores are often the key control variables used to adjust for pre-existing differences among groups.