Formative tests and assessments have high potential in supporting learning, especially for students with special educational needs. One approach to gain assessment information on student learning is to monitor learning progress. For that, multiple repeated tests are often performed by practitioners. In order to be useful in practice, tests must meet various interdependent quality criteria. A property of tests that touches various criteria as the utility and economy is the length. A test has to be long enough to give a meaningful, reliable and comparable measure but short enough to be usable in classroom situations. An approach to evaluate and minimize the length of a computer-based test on sentence comprehension is introduced. It is shown that the test can be shortened from eight to 5 min while the estimation of the student´s abilities remains relatively stable for a random item order and a fixed item order variant. The consequences of test development of progress monitoring and the procedure for test time reduction for the different quality criteria are outlined. An approach to evaluate and minimize the length of a computer-based test by using a one parameter logistic model on a test of sentence comprehension (N = 761) is introduced. The data and the syntax is published in the OSF project https://osf.io/hnbs8/.

Many schools worldwide are facing the challenges of implementing inclusive education into their everyday lives. In order for this to succeed, meaningful measures are needed to evaluate concepts, instructional quality and learning. This paper addresses the development of an instrument for the self-evaluation of schools on behalf of the quality of inclusion, the Quality Scale of Inclusive School Development-short form (QU!S-S). The instrument is based upon the theory of ecological environment of students in a school development model for inclusive schools and addresses five levels of school development as specific but connected dimensions. The levels are ‘Students and their individual needs’, ‘Inclusive Instruction’, ‘Multiprofessional Cooperation’, ‘Inclusive School Concept and School Life’ and ‘External Support and Communal Networking’. The factorial structure is confirmed and successfully tested for measurement invariance between regular school teachers and teachers with duties in special education or psychology as well as primary and secondary schools. Intercorrelations between attitudes toward inclusion and the assessed dimensions are used to underline the appropriateness of the QU!S-S. It is discussed that the parsimonious linkage of different levels of inclusive school quality can establish a basis for discussion on school development.

This study investigates the receptive L2 proficiency of early and late starters in primary EFL education in the German context. Thus, the L2 reading and listening proficiency of primary EFL learners was assessed at the end of primary schooling in year 4 in two German federal states with different ages of onset. A special focus of the study is on indicators of teaching quality as well as teacher qualification. The study did not find significant differences in the receptive L2 proficiency between early starters and late startes. When controlling for teaching quality or teacher qualification the earlier age of onset or increased amount of exposure did not explain variance in learners’ receptive EFL skills. However, supportive climate as an aspect of teaching quality correlates positively and significantly with learners’ EFL proficiency. In addition, there is a small advantage for children taught by teachers with a major in EFL.

Mit dem Ziel, die Bedeutung fachspezifischen Lehrerwissens für die Qualität von Rechtschreibunterricht in der Primarstufe zu erkunden, wurde im Rahmen der ländervergleichenden Studie „Profess-R“ das Professionswissen von 21 deutschen und 23 Schweizer Primarlehrpersonen erfasst und je eine Rechtschreiblektion zur Doppelkonsonantenschreibung videografiert und ausgewertet. Mithilfe von Regressionsanalysen wurde untersucht, ob und inwieweit das orthografiebezogene Fach- und fachdidaktische Wissen der Lehrpersonen die fachspezifische Qualität der Lernangebote vorhersagt. Ergänzend wurde auch die fachlich-gegenstandsbezogene Strukturierung des Unterrichts erfasst und als zusätzlicher Prädiktor in die Analysen einbezogen. Entgegen der kompetenztheoretisch begründeten Erwartungen ließ sich die Qualität des Unterrichts nur punktuell durch das professionelle Wissen der Lehrpersonen erklären. Durch Einbezug der gegenstandsbezogenen Sachstruktur des Unterrichts konnte in den meisten Qualitätsdimensionen erwartungsgemäß keine weitere Varianzaufklärung erreicht werden, sie erwies sich jedoch als bedeutsam für Aspekte der fachlich korrekten Präsentation des Lerngegenstandes.