This paper summarizes data from an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards where teachers could administer the assessment via paper-and-pencil or electronically. The vast majority of teachers reported having access to technologies, training, and capabilities to utilize the digital system. Most reported no issues with electronic test delivery. Additionally, the majority of teachers reported that the majority of their students with significant intellectual disabilities can independently engage with technology, while a small proportion cannot meaningfully access electronic devices. Results both informed the assessment and provide general information about teachers’ perceptions of their students’ interactions and readiness with technology.

e23174 Background: Cancer caregivers are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. The aims of the present study were to develop an instrument to identify cancer caregivers at risk for the development of cardiovascular disease. Methods: Cancer caregivers were enrolled in a prospective study examining predictors of metabolic syndrome. Predictors included perceived stress, caregiver stress, depression, hostility, physical activity, diet, alcohol and tobacco use, social support and relationship with the patient. Regression analyses and factor analyses was performed to reduce the number of items to develop an instrument that would identify cancer caregivers at risk for cardiovascular disease. Internal consistency and Area Under the Receiver Operator Curve was also performed to test the new instrument. Results: A total of 111 caregivers were included in the analyses. The mean age of caregivers was 59.6 ( SD= 12.7) and the majority of caregivers were female (74.8%), Caucasian (94.6%), and were the spouse of the cancer patient (65.8%).Using regression analyses, the items from the caregiver stress, hostility, and social support questionnaires were most likely to predict metabolic syndrome. Preliminary findings suggest that a 35-item instrument was predictive of metabolic syndrome [B = 0.067, HR = 1.07, p = 0.001]. The reliability of the instrument was good with a Cronbach Alpha = 0.83. The Area Under the Receiver Operator Curve was also fair (AUROC = 0.703; 95% CI = 0.597-0.808, p = 0.001). Based on the AUROC, the best cut point to detect metabolic syndrome would be a score of 24 (Sensitivity = 0.75 and Specificity = 0.55). Conclusions: Preliminary findings suggest that this 35-item questionnaire may be useful in identifying cancer caregivers at risk for metabolic syndrome, an intermediate endpoint for cardiovascular disease. The questionnaire may be used to screen cancer caregivers for interventions to reduce metabolic syndrome.

The reciprocal relations of motivation with affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement were tested. Engagement, conceptualized as processes that indicate productive participation in learning activities, was measured using the Activity Engagement Survey with students participating in a variety of activities in both schools and a museum. The multifaceted nature of engagement and the consistency of this structure across contexts and activities was examined over six different science activities on six different days within classrooms (Study 1, sixth graders from 10 different schools) and over two different science museum exhibits in one day (Study 2, fifth graders). These age groups were chosen because they are a pivotal time in science motivation. A series of confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to investigate the nature of affective, behavioral, cognitive, and overall engagement. A bifactor model with both affective and combined behavioral-cognitive factors along with an overall engagement factor had the best fit across all eight activities. Reciprocal relations between motivation (measured at Time 1 and Time 3) and engagement (at Time 2) were tested using Structural Equation Modeling. Results indicate that, in school settings (Study 1), self-efficacy was negatively related and mastery goals were positively related to affective engagement, whereas overall engagement predicted all forms of motivation. In the museum exhibits (Study 2), self-efficacy was positively related to overall engagement and performance-approach goal orientations were positively related to behavioral-cognitive engagement.

We argue that large-scale, standards-based improvements in the teaching and learning of mathematics necessitate advances in our theories regarding how teaching affects student learning and progress in how we measure instruction. Our theory—an embodiment of the interaction of high and low levels of two constructs that past research has shown to influence students’ development of conceptual understanding (explicit attention to concepts and students’ opportunity to struggle)—guided the development of survey-, video-, and artifact-based measures of teaching. Here, we develop a validity argument for the inferences that can be drawn about teaching from these measures by identifying claims and empirical evidence about the extent to which those claims are born out in practice. Results suggest our theory is capturing four patterns of teaching and that it can successfully predict different types of student learning: skills efficiency measured on the state standardized test and conceptual understanding as measured through open-ended task sets.

Background Much of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical (STEMM) education policy and research centers around developing the upper levels of the STEMM workforce sector. However, there are many positions in this workforce, “middle-skill careers,” that are largely responsible for executing the innovations and are largely ignored in STEMM education research. Results Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, we found differences in what predicts STEMM-related vs. non-STEMM careers across skill-level. For instance, underrepresented minorities and those exhibiting school transgressions are more likely to be working in middle-skill STEMM fields than in middle-skill non-STEMM fields as adults; the same is not true of the high-skill workforce. Conclusions One-size-fits-all policies for broadening participation in the STEMM workforce across skill-level are unlikely to be successful. Further, programs that are designed to generate wonder and fascination with STEMM content may be successful in attracting more girls. However, to promote greater participation of individuals from traditionally underrepresented ethnic minority groups in STEMM, programs that support choices toward higher educational attainment, specifically four-year college degree attainment, are more likely to be successful.

A majority of the challenging words that adolescent readers encounter in school texts are morphologically complex and from the Latinate layer of English. For these words, bound roots carry important meaning, such as the relation between innovative and its bound root, nov, meaning “new.” This study investigated the effects of instruction about bound Latin roots on academic word learning and morphological problem-solving skill with English Learners (EL) at three grade bands: Grades 6–8, 9–10, and 11–12. Employing a within-subjects design, 82 students participated in two counterbalanced intervention conditions: an academic vocabulary without morphology (comparison condition) and a morphology-focused academic vocabulary intervention (treatment condition). The largest treatment effects were observed for oldest students, but positive effects were observed at all grade levels. Results suggest that instruction focused on the major meaning-carrying components of academic words of the Latinate layer in English—bound roots—is especially effective for ELs in the secondary grades.

The Pennsylvania Governor's School for International Studies is an intensive summer program designed to give talented high school students a challenging introduction to the study of international affairs. One focus of the evaluation seeks to understand the effect of the program on the students' perception of their knowledge concerning core issues. Across the long history of the program, a variety of measures were used (and subsequently discarded) to assess changes in knowledge and perception of competence. Four years ago the program instituted a retrospective pre-post design. Results from these years, indicate that these students have consistently overestimated their pre-test understanding of core competencies emphasized in the program and that they seem better able to assess their knowledge gains and their initial inflated sense of knowledge as a result of the program. This article offers an overview of the development, application, use and analysis of a retrospective pre-post instrument to address response shift bias.