Researcher's work lands on 'most influential' list

A 2013 paper has landed a University of Georgia College of Education researcher on the Council for Learning Disabilities' list of "most influential" articles.

Scott Ardoin's paper, published in the Journal of School Psychology, examines the recommendations and research surrounding curriculum-based measurement of oral reading. The Department of Educational Psychology researcher and his team evaluated more than 100 studies examining the appropriateness of a widely used measure for monitoring the academic gains made by students' provided with reading interventions.

The selection, Ardoin said, caught him by surprise. "I simply hoped that this paper will help teachers and administrators recognize that while it is important to attend to students' test scores, it is also important to understand how those test scores were derived. "

The primary reason for conducting this research, he added, was his concern that curriculum decisions for students were made based on unreliable data.

Members of the selection committee cited the article's extensive source material, and noted it will influence the next generation of doctoral students looking for big research ideas.

"Ardoin and colleagues remind us that many of the standard rules for progress monitoring with (curriculum-based measurement) have little evidentiary basis as they stand and, as a result, are not ready to be used for high-stakes decisions," writes Kelli Cummings, a member of the research committee. "This work by Ardoin and colleagues offers a blueprint for at least the next decade of curriculum-based measurement research."

The list of articles was announced at the Council for Learning Disabilities' 35th annual international conference. They were selected in six areas relevant to learning disabilities, and all articles were published between August 2012 and July 2013.