Policy makers tend to deal with future risks by increasing the standardisation of national educational systems, a process supported by global educational policy ideas, quality assurance mechanisms and governing instruments and practices. This book presents the reader with tools to challenge accepted ideas about the standardising forces transforming educational reality, by discussing standards and standardisation from a range of different theoretical perspectives and contexts and posing questions such as: Why do we think about education through the lenses of standards? What are the assumed conditions underpinning the idea of standards? Organised into three sections, the historical, theoretical, and philosophical discussions in the first and third sections of the book underscore how educational standards as a phenomenon can be understood in a variety of ways, giving readers insight in to the ambiguous and situated aspects of the phenomenon. Six case studies in the middle section provide an international approach to the study of standards, illuminating how standards simultaneously represent a global and a context specific phenomenon. Across the diversity of theoretical and empirical writings, the book not only provide readers with insight but also broadens the scope of future empirical analyses of the historical, political, and social embeddedness of standards in education.

The reader of this book will gain a greater understanding of contemporary equity issues in educational testing and assessment and to learn to examine these issues in the context of educational reform. The book focuses on the following four issues: (1) the growing prominence that educational testing and assessment are playing in American education; (2) the effect that current testing and assessment policies and practices are having upon minority and disadvantaged students and school systems; (3) the new and innovative approaches to testing and assessment and their prospects for promoting educational equity, educational reform and accountability; and (4) the actions that need to be taken in order to achieve equity in testing and assessment in the nation's schools. The goal is to identify and begin addressing some of the disadvantages faced by many Americans in their pursuit of high-quality education and training. The book explores some of the factors that contribute to the gaps in student achievement along racial and social class lines, and offers ideas for improving the measurement of America's diverse population of students. Some of the chapters focus on how the field of educational testing is changing to include new types of assessment practices and policies, and new types of testing and assessment instruments. Innovations in educational testing and assessment include student exhibitions, portfolios, performance tasks, and essay writing, all of which are being advanced both for in-classroom and in-school use as well as for purposes of public accountability. Some of the public policy innovations include the following: awarding federal funding and recognition based upon studentperformance on tests and assessments; national government approval of the assessments that states, school districts, and schools use; and national approval and sanctioning of the standards that will be measured by educational tests and assessments.

This volume presents chapters by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who study the impact of classroom portfolios in the assessment of writing achievement by elementary and middle grade students.
The focus throughout the volume is on the tension between classroom assessment and externally mandated testing. It presents the efforts of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to understand the impact of classroom portfolios for the assessment of writing achievement by elementary and middle grade students. Under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Writing, the editors conducted a national survey of exemplary portfolio projects, arranged for a series of "video visits," and held several working conferences. The result of this work is a broad-ranging tale: the aspirations of teachers and administrators to move the machinery of schooling in the direction of more authentic and engaging tasks, the puzzlement of students when they realize that the assignments are real and that the teacher may not have a "right answer" in mind, and the tensions between ivory-tower ideas and everyday classroom practice.
Divided into four sections, this research volume:
* provides a historical perspective, develops the conceptual framework that serves as a background for many activities described throughout, and discusses numerous practical issues that confront today's researchers and practitioners;
* views the phenomenon of writing portfolios through a variety of broadview lenses such as teacher enthusiasm, student reflection, assessment tension, the portfolio as metaphor, and the locus of control;
* conveys important conceptual issues with a balance toward pragmatics; and
* offers unique insights from the perspective of one individual who serves as scholar, researcher, and teacher.

This book serves as an essential intervention where the innovative, evidence based and contemporary teaching, learning approaches, strategies and learning support systems to be incorporated in the learning process are presented, supported with findings. It addresses the complex challenges and limitations in practice supported with evidence, hence providing possible approaches to address them. It also addresses an interesting scope of topics that are both contemporary and essential to almost all academics that have a high responsibility to nurture, develop, train and equip learners both at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels at the university with the relevant skills and competencies.

This text is a response to changes currently affecting counselling. A team of contributors identify the pressures forcing change, taking into account national and European legislation and the drive from within counselling towards greater professionalism and accountability. Part one considers the impact of accredation, National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), developing Codes of Ethics and evaluating effectiveness. Part two looks at new interventions for common problems, such as smoking, depression, stress and abuse; new settings for counselling, including the workplace and medical practice; and new techniques, such as using narratives. The final part discusses issues in training, raising questions about the place of a feminist perspective and whether there are still myths about counselling which need to be challenged.

This book examines the mathematics achievement of immigrant students on the basis of data from the IEA Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). It combines an analysis of large-scale assessment data with an in-depth exploration of policy studies and transforms the insights gained into recommendations on how to promote better education for students with an immigrant background. In a world defined by globalization, education systems face the challenge of providing high-quality education for an increasing number of immigrant students. This book addresses topical questions, such as the circumstances and policies that promote good education, and why some countries are more successful than others in catering for the needs of this very diverse group of students. It provides details on the differences between immigrants and non-immigrants in education, includes case studies on policies of two "successful" countries, and gives hints to policy makers for policies that can help improve the situation for immigrant students in schools.

As the commitment to performance assessments as a strategy of reform has increased across the nation, so has the controversy surrounding the purposes, development, implementation, and effects of alternative forms of assessment. One of the first of its kind, this edited volume provides an incisive and comprehensive account of the issues pertaining to performance assessments. The 10 papers comprising the volume were originally written to establish a conceptual framework for a three-year U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement sponsored national study of performance assessments.
Written by leading experts in the field, the papers explicate the central issues regarding the development, implementation, and utility of performance assessments. The topics covered by the papers include:
* a discussion of contemporary as well as historical events in the performance assessment movement;
* technical characteristics of performance assessments, including reliability, validity, generalizability, and calibration;
* conceptualization and calculation of the costs of performance assessments;
* the implications of performance assessments on students who have traditionally done less well in American schools, including racial and linguistic minorities;
* the fit between performance assessments and organizational change in education; and
* the utilization of performance assessment as an instrument of state policy.
Readers will find the policy and technical issues covered in this volume to be useful from a variety of academic, research, and policy perspectives including conceptualizing and implementing performance assessments.

This book radically counters the optimism sparked by Competence Based Education and Training, an educational philosophy that has re-emerged in Schooling, Vocational and Higher Education in the last decade. CBET supposedly offers a new type of learning that will lead to skilled employment; here, Preston instead presents the competency movement as one which makes the concept of human learning redundant. Starting with its origins in Taylorism, the slaughterhouse and radical behaviourism, the book charts the history of competency education to its position as a global phenomenon today, arguing that competency is opposed to ideas of process, causality and analog human movement that are fundamental to human learning.

Educational Outcomes for Students With Disabilities provides readers with the most current perspectives on outcomes that are certain to have an influence on the services they provide. A shift from a focus on the process of education for students with disabilities to a focus on measurable outcomes is occurring and is permeating every level of education, from policy on down to the classroom. This book helps readers think about and prepare for changes in how they provide services.To begin preparing readers for change, the book presents a wide range of topics, beginning with clarifying definitions and historical groundings for the emphasis on outcomes. The authors cover everything from a perspective on the controversial Outcome Based Education (OBE) approach to guidelines on how to use existing data on outcomes. Ways to think about outcomes beyond academics and in alternative settings are addressed as well. Chapters also address different perspectives on what outcomes should be for even young children with disabilities.The contributing authors of this book represent a range of professionals--researchers, policymakers, advocates--whose work helps support student attainment of positive educational outcomes. Individual subjects addressed include: assessment data collection standards opportunity to learn outcome based education (OBE) school reform alternative programs indicators accountabilityEducational Outcomes for Students With Disabilities is a current synthesis of what specialists know about educational outcomes for students with disabilities. It highlights how new ideas will change how school personnel--school counselors and psychologists; supervisors; social workers; speech and language therapists; occupational and physical therapists; and SEA/LEA administrators--educate their students with disabilities.

This book is the result of a conference sponsored by the Educational Testing Service and the University of Wisconsin's National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences Education. The purpose of the conference was to facilitate the work of a group of scholars whose interests included the assessment of higher-order understandings and processes in foundation-level (pre-high school) mathematics. Discussions focused on such issues as the purposes of assessment, guidelines for producing and scoring "real-life" assessment activities, and the meanings of such terms as "deeper and higher-order understanding," "cognitive objectives," and "authentic mathematical activities." Assessment was viewed as a critical component of complex, dynamic, and continually adapting educational systems. During the time that the chapters in this book were being written, sweeping changes in mathematics education were being initiated in response to powerful recent advances in technology, cognitive psychology, and mathematics, as well as to numerous public demands for educational reform. These changes have already resulted in significant reappraisals of what it means to understand mathematics, of the nature of mathematics teaching and learning, and of the real-life situations in which mathematics is useful. The challenge was to pursue assessment-related initiatives that are systematically valid, in the sense that they work to complement and enhance other improvements in the educational system rather than act as an impediment to badly needed curriculum reforms. To address these issues, most chapters in this book focus on clarifying and articulating the goals of assessment and instruction, and they stress the content of assessment above its mode of delivery. Computer- or portfolio-based assessments are interpreted as means to ends, not as ends in themselves. Assessment is conceived as an ongoing documentation process, seamless with instruction, whose quality hinges upon its ability to provide complete and appropriate information as needed to inform priorities in instructional decision making. This book tackles some of the most complicated issues related to assessment, and it offers fresh perspectives from leaders in the field--with the hope that the ultimate consumer in the instruction/assessment enterprise, the individual student, will reclaim his or her potential for self-directed mathematics learning.

As one of the core areas of the curriculum, science provides particular challenges, especially to teachers working at the top end of the elementary school range. "Science 7-11" invites science teachers working with preteens to examine their practice in the light of current research findings. Clive Carre and Carrie Ovens, both experienced primary teachers themselves, ask what teachers really need to know both about their subject and about their students in order to teach science effectively. The authors give practical guidance on curriculum planning, on balancing enquiry approaches to learning with more formal "telling" and on the difficult area of collecting and interpreting evidence of children's progress for assessment.

We are glad to have the opportunity to work together again in the planning and preparation of this edited volume on the evaluation of corporate training. Our respective professional careers have provided us with experience in this area, both as practitioners and as academicians. It is from both of these perspectives that we approached the preparation of this volume. Our purpose is to provide training professionals in business and industry, and students of human resources development with an overview of current models and issues in educational evaluation. The book is organized around three themes: context, models, and issues. The chapters in the context section are intended to provide the reader with an understanding of the social, organizational, and interpersonal factors that provide background and give meaning to evaluation practice. The models section brings together contributions from some of the most influential thinkers and practitioners in the field. The chapters in this section provide perspective on the dominant themes and emergent trends from individuals who have been, and continue to be, the drivers of those trends. Contributions to the issues section highlight some pervasive themes as well as illuminate new areas of concern and interest that will affect how we assess learning interventions in the organizations of today and tomorrow.

Too often teachers and schools operate with grading systems that are vestiges of an antiquated educational model with little fresh thinking as to how grades affect student learning. In On Grades and Grading, Timothy Quinn addresses this problem head on, offering an in-depth and nuanced analysis of the purposes grades can serve, as well as their impact on student learning. Quinn takes a hard look at the three pedagogical purposes for grades - providing data about students, motivating students, and providing students with feedback on their work. He then goes on to address a number of specific and, at times, controversial grading related issues, including grade inflation, grading collaborative work, grading and failure, the grading of behaviors and dispositions, and the use of technology in grading. Educators will find both concrete strategies for improving their grading systems and policies and, perhaps most importantly, a rich resource for improving student learning. Ultimately, Quinn hopes to create a world in which students, parents, and teachers all pay more attention to learning and less to grades themselves.

This book provides new perspectives on Assessment for Learning (AfL), on the challenges encountered in its implementation, and on the diverse ways of meeting these challenges. It brings together contributions from authors working in a wide range of educational contexts: Australia, Canada, England, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Philippines, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States. It reflects the issues, innovations, and critical reflections that are emerging in an expanding international network of researchers, professional development providers, and policy makers, all of whom work closely with classroom teachers and school leaders to improve the assessment of student learning. The concept of Assessment for Learning, initially formulated in 1999 by the Assessment Reform Group in the United Kingdom, has inspired new ways of conceiving and practicing classroom assessment in education systems around the world. This book examines assessment for learning in a broad perspective which includes diverse approaches to formative assessment (some emphasizing teacher intervention, others student involvement in assessment), as well as some forms of summative assessment designed to support student learning. The focus is on assessment in K-12 classrooms and on the continuing professional learning of teachers and school leaders working with these classrooms. Readers of this volume will encounter well documented accounts of AfL implementation across a large spectrum of conditions in different countries and thereby acquire better understanding of the challenges that emerge in the transition from theory and policy to classroom practice. They will also discover a wealth of ideas for implementing assessment for learning in an effective and sustainable manner. The chapters are grouped in three Parts: (1) Assessment Policy Enactment in Education Systems; (2) Professional Development and Collaborative Learning about Assessment; (3) Assessment Culture and the Co-Regulation of Learning. An introduction to each Part provides an overview and presents the suggestions and recommendations formulated in the chapters.

This volume consists of a series of essays written by experts, most of whom participated in a conference conducted by the Educational Testing Service to explore how current fields of artificial intelligence might contribute to ETS's plans to automate one or more of its testing activities.
The papers presented in "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Testing" touch on a variety of topics including mathematics tutors, graph comprehension and computer vision, student reasoning and human accessing, modeling software design within a general problem-space architecture, memory organization and retrieval, and natural language systems. Also included: speculation on possible uses each AI specialty might have for a wide number of testing activities, and selective critical commentaries by two eminent AI researchers.
As Roy Freedle notes in his introduction, "We are at an exciting juncture in applying AI to testing activities." The essays presented in this collection conveysome of that excitement, and represent an important step toward the merging of AI and testing -- a powerful combination that has the potential to instruct and inspire.

The Race To The Top (RTTP) federal education policy fostered a new generation of state tests. This policy advocated adopting common core standards which set a higher level of learning targets for students in the US K?12 education. These standards are intended to assess higher order thinking skills and prepare students ready for college and career. In the meantime, they are aligned with those for international assessments which keep US students abreast of their international peers. Furthermore, the new generation of state tests requires the use of technology enhanced items to align student assessments with student learning environment. Computer technology is indispensable to accomplish this goal. Computer based tests related to common core standards are different from previous state computer based tests in two important aspects, one is that the current version requires accurate assessment of students along all ability levels and the other is that it promotes the use of an efficient test delivery system, essentially the use of computerized adaptive assessment in K?12 state testing programs. In addition to providing summative information about student learning, the new common core tests add formative assessment component in the whole assessment system to provide timely feedback to students and teachers during the process of student learning and teacher instruction. As with its predecessor, the new assessment policy also holds teachers and schools accountable for student learning. With the requirements by the new federal education policy, states formed two consortia: Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter?Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) to develop assessments in alignment with the new common core standards. This book is based on the presentations made at the Thirteenth Annual Maryland Assessment Research Center's Conference on "The Next Generation of Testing: Common Core Standards, Smarter?Balanced, PARCC, and the Nationwide Testing Movement". Experts from the consortia and nationwide overviewed the intention, history and the current status of this nationwide testing movement. Item development, test design, and transition from old state tests to the new consortia tests are discussed. Test scoring and reporting are specially highlighted in the book. The challenges related to standard setting for the new test, especially in the CAT environment and linking performance standards from state tests with consortium tests were explored. The issues of utilizing the consortium test results to evaluate students' college and career readiness is another topic addressed in the book. The last chapters address the critical issue of validity in the new generation of state testing programs. Overall, this book presents the latest status of the development of the two consortium assessment systems. It addresses the most challenging issues related to the next generation of state testing programs including development of innovative items assessing higher order thinking skills, scoring of such items, standard setting and linkage with the old state specific standards, and validity issues. This edited book provides a very good source of information related to the consortium tests based on the common core standards.

An adjunct to the increased emphasis on developing students' critical thinking and higher order skills is the need for methods to monitor and evaluate these abilities. These papers provide insight into current techniques and examine possibilities for the future. The contributors to Diagnostic Monitoring of Skill and Knowledge Acquisition focus on two beliefs: that new kinds of tests and assessment methods are needed; and that instruction and learning can be improved by developing new assessment methods based on work in cognitive science.

This volume comprises of chapters that deal with language proficiency relating to a wide range of language program issues including curriculum, assessment, learners and instructors, and skill development. The chapters cover various aspects of a broad-based proficiency initiative, focusing on numerous aspects of foreign language learning, including how skills develop, how assessments can inform curriculum, how learners and instructors view proficiency and proficiency assessment, and how individual use of technology furthers language learning. The concluding chapter points the way forward for issues and questions that need to be addressed.

Drawing upon experiences at state and local level project evaluation, and based on current research in the professional literature, Payne presents a practical, systematic, and flexible approach to educational evaluations. Evaluators at all levels -- state, local and classroom -- will find ideas useful in conducting, managing, and using evaluations. Special user targets identified are state department of education personnel and local school system administrative personnel. The volume can be used by those doing evaluation projects in the field', or as a text for graduate courses at an introductory level. The book begins with an overview of the generic evaluation process. Chapter Two is devoted to the criteria for judging the effectiveness of evaluation practice. Chapter Three addresses the all important topic of evaluation goals and objectives. Chapters Four, Five and Six basically are concerned with the approach, framework, or design of an evaluation study. Chapter Four contains a discussion of four major philosophical frameworks or metaphors and the implications of these frameworks for conducting an evaluation. Chapters Five and Six describe predominantly quantitative and qualitative designs, respectively. Design, implementation and operational issues related to instrumentation (Chapter Seven), management and decision making (Chapter Eight), and reporting and utilization of results (Chapter Nine) are next addressed. The final chapter of the book (Chapter Ten) considers the evaluation of educational products and materials.

The goals and content for this book are derived from three important and ongoing efforts: to advance the institution of education and to promote educational opportunities to children and youth worldwide, to promote effective assessment policies and practices that enhance sound educational practice, and to address the need to develop tests and other assessment practices in less developed countries as well as to augment and alter a number of traditional assessment practices in developed nations. These three issues provided the focus for a four-day conference that was held at St. Hugh's College, Oxford University, in June 1993. The conference theme-Test Use with Children and Youth: International Pathways to Progress-underscores the importance of addressing testing issues as efforts to improve educational opportunities for children and youth move forward. Leaders from more than seventy nations met at the United Nations sponsored World Summit for Children in 1990 to support ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Worldwide recognition that every individual has the right to develop her or his potential led to the ratification of provisions setting minimum standards for children's education."

Teachers in their first few years of their teaching career require high quality, structured support to begin the journey towards becoming experts. Establishing research-based best practices and working habits set up early career teachers for a fulfilling and successful career. The requirements of teachers are constantly changing, and teachers need to continually adapt their knowledge and practices to fit schools' changing demographics. Having a toolbox of research-based best practices to draw upon can support early career teachers as they move from theory to practical application when the learning curve is the steepest. Strengthening the system of support includes increasing teachers' influence over their day-to-day work and developing positive and supportive cultures of learning. Supporting Early Career Teachers With Research-Based Practices presents both theoretical and practical research to support the conceptual understanding of educational praxis for common areas with which early career educators may require additional expertise or support. This book is intended to be a valuable contribution to the body of literature in the field of education by supplying research-based teaching practices for modern education. Primary topics covered include professional learning, classroom management, student-teacher relationships, teaching diverse students and inclusive educational practices, and teacher self-care strategies. This book is a valuable reference tool for early career teachers of all subject areas and grade levels, school administrators, teacher mentors and guides, education faculty in higher education, educational researchers, curriculum developers, instructional facilitators, practicing teachers, pre-service teachers, professional development coordinators, teacher educators, researchers, academicians, and students interested in teaching practices and support for the early career teacher.

Technological and theoretical changes over the past decade have altered the way we think about test validity. This book addresses the present and future concerns raised by these developments. Topics discussed include: * the validity of computerized testing * the validity of testing for specialized populations (e.g., minorities, the handicapped) and * new analytic tools to study and measure validity

In this book the author introduces a novel approach to securing exam systems. He provides an in-depth understanding, useful for studying the security of exams and similar systems, such as public tenders, personnel selections, project reviews, and conference management systems. After a short chapter that explains the context and objectives of the book, in Chap. 2 the author introduces terminology for exams and the foundations required to formulate their security requirements. He describes the tasks that occur during an exam, taking account of the levels of detail and abstraction of an exam specification and the threats that arise out of the different exam roles. He also presents a taxonomy that classifies exams by types and categories. Chapter 3 contains formal definitions of the authentication, privacy, and verifiability requirements for exams, a framework based on the applied pi-calculus for the specification of authentication and privacy, and a more abstract approach based on set-theory that enables the specification of verifiability. Chapter 4 describes the Huszti-Petho protocol in detail and proposes a security enhancement. In Chap. 5 the author details Remark!, a protocol for Internet-based exams, discussing its cryptographic building blocks and some security considerations. Chapter 6 focuses on WATA, a family of computer-assisted exams that employ computer assistance while keeping face-to-face testing. The chapter also introduces formal definitions of accountability requirements and details the analysis of a WATA protocol against such definitions. In Chaps. 4, 5, and 6 the author uses the cryptographic protocol verifier ProVerif for the formal analyses. Finally, the author outlines future work in Chap. 7. The book is valuable for researchers and graduate students in the areas of information security, in particular for people engaged with exams or protocols.

Researcher Coach has been written with a sole purpose in mind: to give researchers sufficient theoretical and practical support so that they gain a sense of self-direction and autonomy in the process of formulating and conducting their research. From the core notions of paradigm, ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology, methods, and research questions; researchers are guided through the fundamental elements involved in planning and executing their research. This book is not only concerned with supporting researchers in the process of formulating a valid and sound inquiry that is viable and methodologically rigorous, but it also emphasizes the importance of community impact. The reader will learn how to conduct the literature review that grounds their inquiry as well as provides context and justification for the execution of the study. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including methods and data analysis techniques, are presented in great detail as well as describing the sequential approach for presenting the study's results and how to support those with tables and/or figures. The book closes with chapters devoted to the interpretation and discussion of the results, as well as general items related to formatting and project completion for publication.

Researcher Coach has been written with a sole purpose in mind: to give researchers sufficient theoretical and practical support so that they gain a sense of self-direction and autonomy in the process of formulating and conducting their research. From the core notions of paradigm, ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology, methods, and research questions; researchers are guided through the fundamental elements involved in planning and executing their research. This book is not only concerned with supporting researchers in the process of formulating a valid and sound inquiry that is viable and methodologically rigorous, but it also emphasizes the importance of community impact. The reader will learn how to conduct the literature review that grounds their inquiry as well as provides context and justification for the execution of the study. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including methods and data analysis techniques, are presented in great detail as well as describing the sequential approach for presenting the study's results and how to support those with tables and/or figures. The book closes with chapters devoted to the interpretation and discussion of the results, as well as general items related to formatting and project completion for publication.