The Instruments

The Emotional Availability Scales (EA Scales) measures the quality of parent-child or adult-child interactions. Emotional availability refers to “the adult’s ‘receptive presence’ to the child’s emotional signals” (Biringen and Easterbrooks, 2012). Created by Dr. Zeynep Biringen, Ph.D., in 1987, the instrument is currently in its 4th edition. The EA Scales consist of both adult and child subscales and can be completed in approximately 20 minutes.

Student-reported exploration of their ethnic identity, resolution of their ethnic identity, and affirmation of that identity.

The EVC scale was developed based on the Expectancy-Value model to understand motivational factors. This brief 10-item scale is designed to be a rapid measure reflecting student's perceptions of the extent they think they can be successful and the extent that they think a task is worthwhile. This scale allows differentiation between three separate motivational factors (expectancy, value, and cost). Additional research on the cost factor has been done, and a cost scale was developed to contribute to research on the Expectancy-Value Model.

The Family Empowerment Scale (FES) measures empowerment in families whose children have emotional disabilities. The 34 items of the FES questionnaire focus on the level of empowerment (with respect to the family, service system, and larger community and political environment) and the way empowerment is expressed (attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors).

The Florida Civics End-of-Course (EOC) Assessment is required for all Florida public school students taking the required civics course in the middle grades, mostly commonly in Grade 7. The test assesses students' understanding of the origins and purposes of the U.S. political system and government, responsibilitiies of the U.S. citizen, functions and organization of the government, and contemporary issues in world affairs.

Framework for Teaching is a classroom observation instrument that can be used for measuring and evaluating the instructional quality of all teachers (from pre-service to experienced) across K-12. The measure can be flexibly used by classroom teachers for professional learning, school leaders for evaluation, researchers for measurement, and system leaders as a common language for organizing the profession.

The Frequency of Mathematics Instructional Practices Survey is a 14-item survey of self-reported instructional practices. The survey can be used by teachers, administrators, teacher educators, policymakers and researchers in order to assess the extent to which teachers' practices are social-constructivist or transmission-based.

The Friendship Quality Questionnaire (FQQ) is a 40-item self report measure of the quality of a child's best friendship. The FQQ is comprised of 6 subscales; validation and caring, conflict resolution, conflict and betrayal, help and guidance, companionship and recreation, and intimate exchange.

The Friendship Quality Scale is a 23-item questionnaire measuring children’s and young adolescents’ friendship quality. It quantifies their self-reported perceptions of five aspects of their bond with a best friend: companionship, conflict, help/aid, security, and closeness. The scale has 23 items using a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always).

The Gallup Student Poll is a web-based survey of engagement, hope, belonging, and wellbeing in students ranging from grade 5 through grade 12. The Gallup Student Poll is available to schools and districts in the United States and Canada. 

GMRT-4 measures overall reading achievement spanning each important stage along the reading continuum—from oral language to mature reading comprehension. The underlying foundation of GMRT is that it is useful for teachers and schools to know the general level of reading achievement of individual students throughout their entire school careers.

The Geometry Assessments for Secondary Teachers (GAST) Classroom Observation Tool classifies the teaching moves and instructional tasks of teachers according to cognitive demand. It is designed for use specifically within math lessons focused on similarity, congruence, surface area, and volume. It can be used by teacher educators and researchers to identify the quality of math instruction within this domain.

The Georgia Brief School Climate Inventory (GaBSCI) is a 9-item measure of students' perceptions of school climate across three dimensions (safety, teaching and learning, and relationships within the school).

The Global Empathy Scale (GES) is a measure of high school aged student's self-reported awareness of political and social rights of others, emotional connectedness to others, as well as one's likelihood to speak up for others. The 11-items within this measure are responded to on a Likert scale.

Goal Attainment Scales (GAS) offer an approach to evaluate changes in the academic and social behaviors of students. The GAS methodology is individualized and criterion-referenced and consists of three steps: 1) selecting a target academic outcome or behavior, 2) describing the target academic outcome or behavior, 3) developing 3-5 descriptions of the target academic outcome or behavior ranging from the least to most favorable. Each description is assigned a numerical rating that allows the scale to be used for ongoing monitoring and reporting of student progress.

The GORT-5 is an individually administered assessment of oral reading sold by Pearson.

The Grit Scale measures the extent to which individuals are able to maintain focus and interest, and persevere in obtaining long-term goals. It has 8-item, 10-item, and 12-item versions.

The GMADE (Group Mathematics Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation) is a diagnostic mathematics test sold by Pearson that measures individual student skills in the main areas of math. The assesmsent aligns with standards by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and can be used for growth monitoring, strengths and areas for improvement identification, and student placement.

The GRADE (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation) is a reading assessment for students from grade PreK to adult. For grades PreK-3, the diagnostic test measures reading skills that are consistent with the National Reading Panel and Reading First. The GRADE can be used with an RTI program to identify strengths and weaknesses and to track student growth.

Psychologist Carol Dweck created the 3-item Growth Mindset Scale to measure how much people believe that they can get smarter if they work at it. The scale is freely available.

The Healthy Families Parenting Inventory (HFPI) is a self-reporting instrument that measures nine parenting domains: social support, problem-solving, depression, personal care, mobilizing resources, role satisfaction, parent/child interaction, home environment, and parenting efficacy. The instrument, which contains 63 items, is often used for assessing home visitation early childhood programs.

The HEIghten Civic Comeptency and Engagement Assessment evaluates college students' learning. It particularly analyzes their knowledge of civic practices and institutions, skills in understanding civic-related situations, and attitudes of engagement. The civic competency portion is 30 questions

The HEIghten Critical Thinking assessment is administered in a single 45-minute testing session. Each test taker answers 26 questions. The item types include critical thinking sets, short arguments or informational passages, and sets that present conditions applicable to a fictional situation.

The HEIghten® Written Communication assessment addresses four dimensions: Knowledge of social and rhetorical situations, knowledge of conceptual strategies, knowledge of language use and conventions, knowledge of the writing process. The HEIghten Written Communication assessment is administered in a single 45-minute testing session. The first section consists of an essay task that requires the test taker to compose an original response which adopts or defends a position on a claim.

The High School Survey of Student Engagement, a self-report measure, is built on a three-pronged framework of student engagement in their learning environment. The 121 items in this the survey consists of both open response and selected response questions.

The HMH Math Inventory is an assessment that can be used for universal screening and growth monitoring. The adaptive, computer-based test can be taken three to five times per year. The HMH Math Inventory was developed with guidance from the National Math Panel, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and was developed to align with the Common Core State Standards.

The HMH Reading Inventory, an adaptive test of reading comprehension developed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), consists of two subtests: the Foundational Reading Assessment and the Reading Comprehension Assessment.

This survey is meant to provide a social-emotional portrait of a young person. The data can be reported at an individual, classroom, school, and district level. The survey measures student perceptions of strengths and struggles in order to show where more support is needed.

The Identification with School Questionnaire includes 16 Likert-scale items assessing students' identification with or disidentification from school.

The Implicit Person Theory Scale is an 8-item measure of the extent to which an individual believes they can change. Items within the measure are answered on a six-point Likert scale.