Washington State University

The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of the Better Futures program for increasing the postsecondary attainment of older youth in foster care (approximate ages 16-20) through a multi-site randomized controlled trial (RCT). Youth with foster care experience are a highly diverse, highly vulnerable population that face daunting challenges in relation to accessing and being successful in postsecondary education. The Better Futures postsecondary access intervention for youth in fost...

The purpose of this measurement project is to further refine and validate a low-cost, efficient, and proactive assessment to address student truancy and dropout. The Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students(WARNS) is used in middle and high schools to identify factors that contribute to truancy and are malleable in response to intervention. The WARNS provide a framework for school personnel to generate conversations and personalized action plans with youth for improving atten...

The purpose of this partnership was to bring together Washington State University and Washington State Education Services District (ESD) 105 to conduct preliminary research on the adequacy of Teaching Strategies Gold (TSGold) for assessing literacy skills and on the potential of the WaKIDS enhanced condition to improve literacy outcomes when compared to the non-enhanced condition. The partnership also examined teacher responses to the use of WaKIDS and TSGold.

Maximizing a child's opportunity to learn and succeed academically requires confronting at least two types of challenges. First, one must determine which strategies best foster learning. Second, one must determine how best to motivate students to take advantage of those strategies. This project will focus on whether a belief that one can improve one's intelligence leads students to use self-regulated learning strategies more often and to use those strategies in more effective ways. The resea...

The purpose of the research project was to create multilevel differential item functioning (DIF) methods and software to increase the accuracy of the detection of DIF. Detection of DIF is one step in the process of gathering score validity evidence. DIF occurs when examinees from different subgroups who have equal ability on the measured construct have different probabilities of responding correctly to an item. DIF detection is a common component of instrument development in testing programs...