AAER-Word of the Day

Disagreements between members of a group over classroom rules and routines.

An analytical scoring technique that requires a test developer to first identify the most salient characteristics or primary traits when observing a product, process, or performance.

In instruction, the usefulness of a test for predicting how much learners will benefit from some future instructional program; the correlation between a learner’s ability before an instructional program and his or her achievement after the program.

The condition of administering a stimulus, following a response, that increases the likelihood of that response occurring again.

Tests that use direct measures of learning rather than indicators that suggest that learning has taken place.

An appraisal or evaluation that a person makes about his or her personal competence at a particular task; an individual’s personal expectations, internal standards, and self-concept.

The social structure that governs classroom conversation. The most common form of participation structure is a one-to-one question-and-answer format.

As a form of information processing, ordering and systematizing new information so that one can remember and use it efficiently.

A type of learning in which the probability or likelihood of a behavior occurring is changed as a result of procedures that follow that behavior.

Statements that specify the skills learners acquire in order to achieve important goals.

The formation of expectations among a group of learners as a result of past individual experiences and expectations.

The principle that learners are entitled to programs that allow them to experience the respect and dignity to which any person in their culture or society is entitled.

A classic distribution of scores in which most scores fall symmetrically around the mean with fewer scores on the upper and lower ends, which makes a frequency distribution of scores look bell-shaped.

A longstanding debate about the relative importance to development of genetic influences and environmental factors.

Tests that do not assume that a single trait underlies differences in school

achievement between learners and instead measure a number of specific and distinct abilities.

These tests assign several separate scores representing different aspects of learning ability.