An Exploration of Alternative Scoring Methods Using Curriculum-Based Measurement in Early Writing

This manuscript describes two empirical studies of alternative scoring procedures used with curriculum-based measurement in writing (CBM-W). Study 1 explored the technical adequacy of a trait-based rubric in first grade. Study 2 explored the technical adequacy of a trait-based rubric, production-dependent, and production-independent scores in third grade. Results of Study 1 suggest that the rubric holds promise as a valid measure of sentence writing ability in first grade and has utility as a supplemental scoring procedure when using CBM-W as a screening tool. Results of Study 2 show that correct word sequences maintained the highest correlation coefficients across time with the trait-based rubric, but the other scoring procedures might offer promise as reliable alternative scoring methods. However, high internal correlations among the text features of the rubric along with highly variable interrater reliability suggest that caution must be taken in interpreting results

Scoring measures of word dictation curriculum-based measurement in writing: Effects of incremental administration

Spelling has been identified as a key transcription skill that emerges during the elementary years as students learn how to write and subsequently develop fluency with writing, making the assessment of spelling a critical component of evaluation systems within schools. This includes the use of curriculum-based measures of writing (CBM-W). This study examined the extent to which word dictation CBM-W administered during the Fall, Winter, and Spring of an academic year maintained technical adequacy across 1-min time intervals in grades 1–3. Results revealed moderate predictive and concurrent validity estimates with the Spelling subtest of the Weschler Individual Achievement Test-III. Statistically significant differences existed between and within grade levels across each minute of administration and across Fall, Winter, and Spring time points for all scoring procedures

Using Data-Based Instruction to Support Struggling Elementary Writers

Writing is a critical academic and life skill, but many school-age children struggle with the complexity of written expression. Given the importance of writing, there is a clear need for a systematic approach to identifying and supporting struggling writers, including writers with learning and emotional disabilities. One such approach is known as data-based instruction (DBI). This article presents an overview of DBI and guidance on how educators can use the DBI steps with assessment data to inform their classroom writing instruction. Additional resources are shared to support teachers in using DBI with their struggling writers and writers with learning and emotional disabilities

Exploration of New Complexity Metrics for Curriculum-Based Measures of Writing

Researchers and practitioners have questioned whether scoring procedures used with curriculum-based measures of writing (CBM-W) capture growth in complexity of writing. We analyzed data from six independent samples to examine two potential scoring metrics for picture word CBM-W (PW), a sentence-level CBM task. Correct word sequences per response (CWSR) and words written per response (WWR) were compared with the current standard metric of correct word sequences (CWS). Linear regression analyses indicated that CWSR predicted scores on standardized norm-referenced criterion measures in more samples than did WWR or CWS. Future studies should explore the capacity of CWSR and WWR to show growth over time, stability, diagnostic accuracy, and utility for instructional decision making

Deglacial Variability in Okhotsk Sea Intermediate Water Ventilation and Biogeochemistry: Implications for North Pacific Nutrient Supply and Productivity

Highlights • Multi-proxy, multi-site reconstruction of Okhotsk Sea palaeo-productivity and mid-depth ventilation changes from 8 to 18 ka. • Link between hinterland river discharge and downstream Okhotsk Sea Intermediate Water (OSIW) ventilation/nutrient signatures. • Surplus Fe, Si(OH)4 export in OSIW during Bølling-Allerød to pelagic Pacific supported transient nutrient-replete conditions. • Subarctic and subtropical Pacific gyres disconnected during Bølling-Allerød, with restricted OSIW flow to lower latitudes. • Deglacial OSIW export and mid-depth Pacific biogeochemistry modulate millennial-scale regional CO2 source/sink conditions. The modern North Pacific plays a critical role in marine biogeochemical cycles, as an oceanic sink of CO2 and by bearing some of the most productive and least oxygenated waters of the World Ocean. The capacity to sequester CO2 is limited by efficient nutrient supply to the mixed layer, particularly from deeper water masses in the Pacific's subarctic and marginal seas. The region is in addition only weakly ventilated by North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW), which receives its characteristics from Okhotsk Sea Intermediate Water (OSIW). Here, we present reconstructions of intermediate water ventilation and productivity variations in the Okhotsk Sea that cover the last glacial termination between eight and 18 ka, based on a set of high-resolution sediment cores from sites directly downstream of OSIW formation. In a multi-proxy approach, we use total organic carbon (TOC), chlorin, biogenic opal, and CaCO3 concentrations as indicators for biological productivity. C/N ratios and XRF scanning-derived elemental ratios (Si/K and Fe/K), as well as chlorophycean algae counts document changes in Amur freshwater and sediment discharge that condition the OSIW. Stable carbon isotopes of epi- and shallow endobenthic foraminifera, in combination with 14C analyses of benthic and planktic foraminifera imply decreases in OSIW oxygenation during deglacial warm phases from c. 14.7 to 13 ka (Bølling-Allerød) and c. 11.4 to 9 ka (Preboreal). No concomitant decreases in Okhotsk Sea benthic-planktic ventilation ages are observed, in contrast to nearby, but southerly locations on the Japan continental margin. We attribute Okhotsk Sea mid-depth oxygenation decreases in times of enhanced organic matter supply to maxima in remineralization within OSIW, in line with multi-proxy evidence for maxima in primary productivity and supply of organic matter. Sedimentary C/N and Fe/K ratios indicate more effective entrainment of nutrients into OSIW and thus an increased nutrient load of OSIW during deglacial warm periods. Correlation of palynological and sedimentological evidence from our sites with hinterland reference records suggests that millennial-scale changes in OSIW oxygen and nutrient concentrations were largely influenced by fluvial freshwater runoff maxima from the Amur, caused by a deglacial northeastward propagation of the East Asian Summer Monsoon that increased precipitation and temperatures, in conjunction with melting of permafrost in the Amur catchment area. We suggest that OSIW ventilation minima and the high lateral supply of nutrients and organic matter during the Allerød and Preboreal are mechanistically linked to concurrent maxima in nutrient utilization and biological productivity in the subpolar Northwest Pacific. In this scenario, increased export of nutrients from the Okhotsk Sea during deglacial warm phases supported subarctic Pacific shifts from generally Fe-limiting conditions to transient nutrient-replete regimes through enhanced advection of mid-depth nutrient- and Fe-rich OSIW into the upper ocean. This mechanism may have moderated the role of the subarctic Pacific in the deglacial CO2 rise on millennial timescales by combining the upwelling of old carbon-rich waters with a transient delivery of mid-depth-derived bio-available Fe and silicate

Getting More From Your Maze: Examining Differences in Distractors

The present study examined the technical adequacy of maze-selection tasks constructed in 2 different ways: typical versus novel. We selected distractors for each measure systematically based on rules related to the content of the passage and the part of speech of the correct choice. Participants included 262 middle school students who were randomly assigned to 1 of the 2 maze formats. Scoring of the maze included both correct and correct-minus-incorrect scores. Students completed 3 criterion-reading tests: the Scholastic Reading Inventory, the AIMSweb R-Maze, and a high-stakes state assessment (the Missouri Assessment Program). Alternate-forms reliability was similar across maze formats; however, with regard to scoring procedure, reliability coefficients were consistently higher for correct than for correct-minus-incorrect scores. Validity coefficients were also similar across format with 1 exception: The coefficients for typical maze scores were stronger when compared with the Missouri Assessment Program scores than the coefficients for novel maze scores

Technical Adequacy of Curriculum-Based Measures in Writing in Grades 1–3

The purpose of this study was to investigate evidence of reliability, criterion validity, and grade-level differences of curriculum-based measures of writing (CBM-W) with 612 students in grades 1–3. Four scoring procedures (words written, words spelled correctly, correct word sequences, and correct minus incorrect word sequences) were used with two CBM-W tasks (picture–word and story prompt) during fall, winter, and spring of one academic year. A subsample of participants (n = 244) were given a criterion measure in spring of the academic year. Pearson’s r coefficients were calculated to determine evidence of alternate form reliability and criterion validity, and a MANOVA was used to detect significant growth within and across grade levels. Results indicated that scores on both CBM-W tasks had adequate reliability and validity coefficients in grades 2–3 and mixed results in grade 1. Significant growth was detected within and across all grades at each time point on each task. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Supporting teachers’ use of data-based instruction to improve students’ early writing skills

We examined the effects of a professional development (PD) system designed to support teachers’ use of data-based instruction (DBI) to improve early writing outcomes for children with intensive needs. The PD system, called DBI-TLC, provided tools for early writing assessment and intervention, learning modules including face-to-face workshops followed by classroom application, and ongoing coaching to support DBI implementation. Special education teachers in 19 classrooms in 2 Midwestern districts were assigned randomly to receive DBI-TLC or to a business-as-usual control group. All teachers completed pre- and posttests of DBI knowledge and skills and self-efficacy, and DBI-TLC teachers’ fidelity to DBI was assessed. Fifty-three students (2 to 3 from each classroom) completed pre- and posttests of early writing using curriculum-based measures (CBM) and the Test of Early Written Language-3 (TEWL-3). DBI-TLC teachers outperformed controls at posttest on DBI knowledge and skills (Hedge’s g = 2.88) and reported a more explicit writing instruction orientation compared to controls (g = 1.63). DBI fidelity varied (on average, 84% for assessment, 79% for intervention, and 52% for decision-making). Students whose teachers implemented DBI showed a pattern of stronger early writing performance compared to control students on CBM, with effect sizes of 0.23 to 0.40, but not on the TEWL-3 (0.02 to 0.13). We discuss the promise of DBI-TLC to improve teacher practice and student outcomes, as well as the need to continue to explore ways to support teachers’ implementation of DBI with fidelity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved

Electric Field Effects on Graphene Materials

Understanding the effect of electric fields on the physical and chemical properties of two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures is instrumental in the design of novel electronic and optoelectronic devices. Several of those properties are characterized in terms of the dielectric constant which play an important role on capacitance, conductivity, screening, dielectric losses and refractive index. Here we review our recent theoretical studies using density functional calculations including van der Waals interactions on two types of layered materials of similar two-dimensional molecular geometry but remarkably different electronic structures, that is, graphene and molybdenum disulphide (MoS$_2$). We focus on such two-dimensional crystals because of they complementary physical and chemical properties, and the appealing interest to incorporate them in the next generation of electronic and optoelectronic devices. We predict that the effective dielectric constant ($\varepsilon$) of few-layer graphene and MoS$_2$ is tunable by external electric fields ($E_{\rm ext}$). We show that at low fields ($E_{\rm ext}^{}<0.01$ V/\AA) $\varepsilon$ assumes a nearly constant value $\sim$4 for both materials, but increases at higher fields to values that depend on the layer thickness. The thicker the structure the stronger is the modulation of $\varepsilon$ with the electric field. Increasing of the external field perpendicular to the layer surface above a critical value can drive the systems to an unstable state where the layers are weakly coupled and can be easily separated. The observed dependence of $\varepsilon$ on the external field is due to charge polarization driven by the bias, which show several similar characteristics despite of the layer considered.Comment: Invited book chapter on Exotic Properties of Carbon Nanomatter: Advances in Physics and Chemistry, Springer Series on Carbon Materials. Editors: Mihai V. Putz and Ottorino Ori (11 pages, 4 figures, 30 references