Given worldwide prevalence of low-stakes testing for monitoring educational quality and students' progress through school (e.g., Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, Program for International Student Assessment), interpretability of resulting test scores is of global concern. The nonconsequential nature of low-stakes tests can undermine students' test-taking motivation, artificially deflating performance and thus jeopardizing validity of test-based inferences, whether they pertain to programs, institutions, or nations (Eklöf, 2007(Eklöf, , 2010Stanat & Lüdtke, 2013;Wise & DeMars, 2005). Moreover, students in countries such as the United States, where academic progress over the course of K-12 (kindergarten through Grade 12) is systematically assessed, are likely to develop antagonistic attitudes toward lowstakes testing by the time they enter college. The relationship between such attitudes, test-taking motivation, and performance on a low-stakes university accountability test was modeled via path analysis. Results indicated the effects of attitudes were indirect (via test-taking motivation) and minimal, suggesting the influence of attitudes on test performance is negligible, further supporting the validity of inferences made from such low-stakes tests. Implications for international assessment are discussed.

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Purpose To evaluate the effect of a bundled intervention on the number of skin-to-skin (“kangaroo care”) events occurring in a level IV NICU. Design A quality improvement effort centering around the introduction of an intervention bundle intended to safely increase the rate of skin-to-skin holding. Rates of unplanned extubations were recorded as a balancing measure to estimate safety. Sample All infants admitted to the NICU from December 2017 through September 2019 were included. The “preintervention” period was the 6 months prior to the initiation of the intervention bundle (December 2017–May 2018). Results The absolute number of skin-to-skin holds increased from the preintervention phase (range 7–28 holds/month, median 11 holds/month) to the postintervention phase (range 16–100 holds/month, median 55 holds/month). The total unplanned extubations showed no significant change between the preintervention and postintervention periods.

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