Brooke Midkiff

Understanding Local Instructional Responses to Federal and State Accountability Mandates: A Typology of Extended Learning Time.

For the past dozen years, the federal government has held schools accountable for students’ achievement in reading and mathematics. Schools that have not demonstrated improved student scores have faced heavy sanctions, including reconstitution and closure. In response to this high-stakes environment, schools appear to have extended the time students spend in instruction in various ways. In this article, the authors develop a typology of the programs and reforms that extend instruction along three dimensions: time, target, and providers. On the time dimension, extended instruction can occur within a school day or outside of it. Along the target dimension, some types of extended instruction are delivered to all of a schools students while others target particular subpopulations, such as those who have failed to meet certain performance thresholds. Finally, extended instruction may be provided by a schools core instructional staff or by others, including specialized teachers, private providers, and peers. Through the typology, the authors provide a framework for understanding schools’ instructional responses to federal accountability requirements and set forth a research agenda that calls attention to unanswered questions about the effectiveness and equity of instructional time interventions.

Measuring grit among first-generation college students: A psychometric analysis

The concept of grit is of interest in the field of education, particularly as it pertains to persistence to a 4-year college degree. This study offers an IRT analysis of the Grit Scale when used among first-generation college students (FGCSs) as well as recent first-generation college graduates and non-FGCS recent graduates. The Grit Scale was included in surveys administered as part of an array of other research projects within The Finish Line Project—a US Department of Education First in the World grant-funded project that seeks to improve FGCS access to, persistence in, and completion of postsecondary education through rigorous research into various programs and supports for FGCSs. The reliability and validity of the Grit Scale have not yet been analyzed for use with FGCS or overall with students at large, research universities. By comparing enrolled students and recent graduates, the psychometric analysis in this study offers insight into the measurement of student grit for use in program development and policy-making to improve student retention. Item response theory (IRT) analyses, analysis of differential item functioning (DIF), reliability analyses, convergent and discriminant validity analyses, and known groups validity analyses were used to examine the Grit Scale.

An IRT analysis of the growth mindset scale

Growth mindset has gained popularity in the fields of psychology and education, yet there is surprisingly little research on the psychometric properties of the Growth Mindset Scale. This research presents an item response theory analysis of the Growth Mindset Scale when used among college students in the United States. Growth Mindset is the belief that success comes through hard work and effort rather than fixed intelligence. Having a growth mindset is believed to be important for academic success among historically marginalized groups; therefore it is important to know if the Growth Mindset Scale functions well among first generation college students. The sample consists of 1260 individuals who completed the Growth Mindset Scale on one of 5 surveys. The Growth Mindset Scale consists of 8 items, with responses ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). IRT analysis is used to assess item fit, scale dimensionality, local dependence, and differential item functioning (DIF). Due to local dependence within the 8-item scale, the final IRT model fit 4 items to a unidimensional model. The 4-item scale did not exhibit any local dependence or DIF among known groups within the sample. The 4-item scale also had high marginal reliability (0.90) and high total information. Cronbach’s alpha for the 4-item scale was α = 0.89. Discussion of the local dependence issues within the 8-item scale is provided.