Tenaha O'Reilly

The purpose of this project was to explore the relationship between high school students' background knowledge and their reading comprehension. Research has shown that students with more background knowledge (namely the previously learned knowledge that may help students understand what they read by providing extra information that is not included in text) are better able to comprehend what they read than those students with little background knowledge. Although researchers know that backgro...

The purpose of this project is to create a generative artificial intelligence (gen-AI) enhanced authoring tool for scenario-based assessments (SBAs). SBAs place knowledge and skills into a scenario or practical context so that test-takers can be both observers of and active participants in their own performance, building on a body of IES funded investments in developing and validating SBAs.  This creates the opportunity for a reflective, metacognitive, and self-regulatory loop that enables ...

In this project, researchers will refine and pilot test an interactive, online reading comprehension program for adult literacy students reading between the 3rd- and 8th-grade level. This program, called AutoTutor for Adult Reading Comprehension (AT-ARC), was previously part of a hybrid lesson plan developed through the Center for Struggling Adult Learners (R305C120001) but will be refined to be a stand-alone comprehension practice tool. Roughly one in six adults in the United States have li...

This team developed and evaluated a new system of assessments aligned with current theoretical constructs and empirical findings pertaining to both reading comprehension and performance moderators; sensitive to changes in development in reading comprehension; emphasize strategic reading processes empirically supported in the literature; provide greater information for guiding instruction (especially for students struggling to reach proficiency); and are comprised of texts and tasks that repr...