This volume presents a variety of overall assessments of technology and individual descriptions of work-in-progress. Supported by private funders, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and a variety of other sources, these efforts address education programs focused on specific subject matter such as mathematics or troubleshooting of school-based learning using computers. They also focus on classes of technology such as intelligent systems, distance learning, and hypertext. Taken together, they portray the range of strategies through which we can begin to understand the impact of educational technology in the future. In addition, they illustrate different approaches currently adopted by technology designers to place and explain their work in a larger context.
Each of the chapters presents a different point of entry on the technology assessment problem. Even those nominally focused on a single implementation, such as testing or teacher observation, demonstrate the clear interest by their authors in the larger implications of their work.

Language tests play pivotal roles in education, research on learning, and gate-keeping decisions. The central concern for language testing professionals is how to investigate whether or not tests are appropriate for their intended purposes. This book introduces an argument-based validity framework to help with the design of research that investigates the validity of language test interpretation and use. The book presents the principal concepts and technical terms, then shows how they can be implemented successfully in practice through a variety of validation studies. It also demonstrates how argument-based validity intersects with technology in language testing research and highlights the use of validity argument for identifying research questions and interpreting the results of validation research. Use of the framework helps researchers in language testing to communicate clearly and consistently about technical issues with each other and with researchers of other types of tests.

This study examines the implications for evaluation and assessment when more responsibility for the learning process is given to the learner. Including a new section which explains how to match the evaluation system to the environment, this revised edition includes sections on peer assessment, self-assessment, styles of evaluation, references, and the roles of teacher and learner. The ideas are illustrated with numerous case studies and suggestions for group work and discussion.

Why assess?, What can I assess?, How can I assess satisfactorily in physical education (PE)?, these and other questions are examined in this volume, which offers both practical advice and theoretical perspectives relating assessment in PE to assessment in other subjects and in school issues generally. The book has been written over a period in which the interim report of the working party for PE and the statutory orders for PE have been published, Ministers for Education have been changed and the government has been constantly shifting or changing its views on aspects of assessment to do with the National Curriculum.

In the past, assessment was underplayed or neglected in the training of physical education teachers. Physical education lay, largely, outside of school's formal structures of assessment, and books on assessment completely ignored this area of the school curriculum. With the introduction of the GCSE, Routes of Assessment (ROA) and the National Curriculum, assessment has become an important part of the teaching of PE. This book examines in detail the issues as they affect teachers.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the history and current status of policy, research and practices of curriculum, classroom instruction and assessment in Japan. It outlines the mechanism of curriculum organization and the history of the National Courses of Study, and assesses the theories of academic ability model. It also discusses in detail the history of "Lesson Study" - a characteristic teaching practice in Japan which utilizes groups, and reviews the history of educational assessment in Japan. Case studies on the practice of portfolio assessment in the Period for Integrated Study, as well as the practice of performance tasks in subject-based education are illustrated to show various examples of teaching practices. Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment in Japan explores: * Child-centered Curriculum and Discipline-Centered Curriculum * Theories based on Models of Academic Achievement and Competency * Various Methods for Organizing Creative Whole-Class Teaching * Performance Assessment in Subject Teaching A good guideline for those who would like to use the idea of "Lesson Study" in order to improve their own teaching and management practices and a reference to all working in educational improvement, this book will be of interest to educators and policymakers concerned with curriculum practices or those with an interest in the Japanese education system.

This second edition of the Posters' guide to teacher appraisal has been substantially updated to include the definitive Department For Education (DFE) regulations and guidelines which have appeared since the first edition was published. The text includes new chapters on the regulations and their implication, on task observation and data collection, on the appraisal statement and on appraisal in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The authors have orientated their work much more to schools, providing updated versions of their valuable training materials for school-based INSET, group work, and self-study. This second edition also includes research evidence from trials of headteacher appraisal.

Several key developments challenge the field of educational measurement today: demands for tests at larger scales with higher stakes, an improved understanding of how people develop capabilities, and new technologies for interactive digital assessments. Sociocognitive Foundations of Educational Measurement integrates new developments in educational measurement and educational psychology in order to provide researchers, testing professionals, and students with an innovative sociocognitive perspective on assessment. This comprehensive volume begins with a broad explanation of the sociocognitive perspective and the foundations of assessment, then provides a series of focused applications to major topics such as assessment arguments, validity, fairness, interactive assessment, and a conception of "measurement" in educational assessment. Classical test theory, item response theory, categorical models, mixture models, cognitive diagnosis models, and Bayesian networks are explored from the resulting perspective. Ideal for specialists in these areas, graduate students, developers, and scholars in both educational measurement and fields that contribute to a sociocognitive perspective, this book consolidates nearly a decade of research into a fresh perspective on educational measurement.

Learning potential assessment, which has lately been receiving a great deal of attention, consists of test procedures for measuring children's learning potential procedures that be regarded as an extension of current intelligence testing. The 17 chapters included in this volume are based on papers p

The editors of this volume suggest that there are missing elements in the conceptualization upon which standard test theory is based. Those elements are models for just how people know what they know and do what they can do, and the ways in which they increase these capacities. Different models are useful for different purposes; therefore, broader or alternative student models may be appropriate. The chapters in this volume consider a variety of directions in which standard test theory might be extended. Topics covered include: the role of test theory in light of recent work in cognitive and educational psychology, test design, student modeling, test analysis, and the integration of assessment and instruction.

Since the end of the 1990s, the Chinese higher education system has seen a dramatic expansion of enrolment. China currently has the largest higher education system in the world, however, the rapid growth resulted in concerns being raised about the quality of the system. In response, an array of external quality assessment schemes of higher education has been established, based on suggested policy designs and reforms. The establishment of an effective quality assurance mechanism is a major challenge for universities around the world, therefore, what experience and lessons can be learned from the Chinese practice? This book analyses the external quality assurance system of higher education in China. It brings together scholarship on this topic by renowned Chinese experts, reporting and discussing recent policy developments and research. It presents and analyses various quality evaluation schemes, covering undergraduate, postgraduate, and vocational levels of higher education. The theoretical roots and value orientation of Chinese higher education quality assurance are also reflected on. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Chinese Education and Society.

This collection presents educational assessment research from Latin America, adding to a relatively small but growing body of research considering educational assessment and evaluation issues in this large region. The predominance of Chile reflects its early highly centralized education system, and the fact that it adopted national testing before other Latin American countries. It was also an early participant in international assessment programmes. Other countries have followed the trend of implementing national testing, and to a lesser extent participating in international surveys. The complementary development of technical expertise in quantitative research methods has enabled extensive analysis of the large data sets generated by these testing and assessment programmes. Taken together, the evidence reported provides a means not only of reviewing educational quality issues in Latin America, but also of facilitating comparisons that allow the context specificity of equivalent research conducted in western developed countries to be considered. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice.

How can formative assessment be used as a means to support teacher professional learning? This book presents several studies, from different countries, on approaches to formative assessment of teachers, both before they start working, and during their careers. These approaches draw on insights from studies into effective teacher professional development. Together, the chapters in this book provide an overview of the various ways in which formative assessment may be used to support teacher professional learning, and shed light on choices that can be made in designing such assessments. The studies illustrate how teachers may perceive formative assessment methods, how their learning processes might unfold during formative assessment processes, and which struggles they may have to deal with during the process. The book furthermore addresses questions concerning the impact of formative assessments on teacher learning. As such, this volume provides theoretical as well as practical prospects, as well as challenging ideas for how formative assessment may move further towards being an effective means for supporting teacher learning. This book was originally published as a special issue of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice.

Human judgements underlie all assessments regarding the quality of students' understandings, and such judgements are conceptually complex and elusive. The study of the complexity of the judgement process is in its infancy but clearly warrants further critical investigation. However, what is demonstrated from the wide variety of international teacher judgement practices presented in this volume is that teacher judgement requires a lot more than a set of standards, criteria and annotated examples. Understandings of assessment theory by pre-service teachers through to more experienced teachers, and opportunities for all to critically reflect and consider their judgements of student work, are vital. Teachers are struggling to maintain their interpretive freedom at the local, professional level in contexts where central policies promote standardisation or 'regulation' of judgement practice, for accountability purposes. This book was originally published as a special issue of Assessment in Education: principles, policy & practice.

Assessment of educational achievement, whether by traditional examinations or by teachers in schools, attracts considerable public interest, particularly when it is associated with 'high stakes' outcomes such as university entry or selection for employment. When the individual's results do not chime with their or their teachers' expectations, doubts creep in about the process of assessment that has arrived at this result. However, educational assessment is made up of many layers of complexity, which are not always clear to the general public, including teachers, students, and parents, and which are not easily understood outside of the expert assessment community. These layers may be organized in highly co-dependent relationships that include reliability, validity, human judgment, and errors, and the uses and interpretations of the various types of assessment. No-one could reasonably argue that the principles and complexities of educational assessment should be core learning in public education, but there is a growing realization that trust in the UK assessment system is under some threat as the media and others sensationalize or politicize any problems that arise each year. This book offers the first comprehensive overview of how the general public is considered to perceive and understand a wide variety of aspects of educational assessment, and how this understanding may be improved. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Oxford Review of Education.

Social Justice and Educational Measurement addresses foundational concerns at the interface of standardized testing and social justice in American schools. Following John Rawls's philosophical methods, Stein builds and justifies an ethical framework for guiding practices involving educational measurement. This framework demonstrates that educational measurement can both inhibit and ensure just educational arrangements. It also clarifies a principled distinction between efficiency-oriented testing and justice-oriented testing. Through analysis of several historical case studies that exemplify ethical issues related to testing, this book explores and propounds speculative design principles and arguments in favour of radically democratic school reforms, which address how the future of testing might be shaped to ensure justice for all. These case studies cover the widespread use of IQ-style testing in schools during the early decades of the 20th century; the founding of the Educational Testing Service; and the recent history of test-based accountability associated with No Child Left Behind. Social Justice and Educational Measurement will be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in education, testing and assessment, and the philosophy of education. It will also be of interest to policymakers and educational administrators.

Originally published in 1968, at a time when the current public examination systems were coming under close scrutiny this volume discusses completely and fully the merits and demerits of various methods of educational measurement, starting with the theories from which they evolved and going on to observe their efficacy in practice. School-based systems of measurement are also studied, both as separate entities and in comparison with the public examinations at 11+, CSE and 'O' and 'A'-levels of the GCE. The subject-matter of this book was intended to affect students, practising teachers and educationists and, whatever their views, they were able to use the authors' exposition of this controversial subject as a starting point for further and deeper discussion.

Equipped with cultural tools like cell phones, computers and video cameras, youth are called upon to improvise and construct themselves symbolically in a continuously connected world; yet new teachers and students are still expected to learn and deliver standardized, placeless forms of scripted curriculum. This volume argues for improvisation as an approach to curriculum that recognizes the fundamentally creative aspects of learning that are often marginalized in communities of disadvantage. It provides interesting possibilities for schools that are working hard to keep up with technological, economic and cultural change, and argues for an improvised middle ground between structure and creativity. This volume outlines a two-year research project performed in a Canadian middle school, where school staff used student filmmaking as a way to expand teachers' conceptions of literacy. It analyzes the response of students and parents as well as the student teachers that brought the program to the school. The improvisational techniques used while making the films paved the way for larger benefits of curricular improvisation to be explored.

Promoting high standards in education while striving for equal opportunities under the budget constraints - these are the new global objectives of education systems. This book brings together research-based evidence on the effectiveness of major Australian, Dutch, and UK improvement efforts in education at both primary and secondary level, whilst making comparisons with similar US initiatives. The book addresses several major questions in this new environment. Those questions include: how to combat educational disadvantages, how to integrate pupils with special educational needs in regular education, how to implement educational standards initiatives, how to restructure secondary education, how to implement decentralized policy-making, and how to implement a class size reduction initiative. Finally, the authors suggest directions for future research in order to increase our understanding of what works in education and why.

"The Role of Assessment in Schools" looks at the conceptual aspects of tests and testing and also gives practical guidelines on how to use tests to their best effect. It considers the development of tests, the types and scope of tests, their application and interpretation, and answers questions on who wants testing, whether the test is appropriate or biased, and whether the results are consistent?.

In this valuable resource, well-known scholars present a detailed understanding of contemporary theories and practices in the fields of measurement, assessment, and evaluation, with guidance on how to apply these ideas for the benefit of students and institutions. Bringing together terminology, analytical perspectives, and methodological advances, this second edition facilitates informed decision-making while connecting the latest thinking in these methodological areas with actual practice in higher education. This research handbook provides higher education administrators, student affairs personnel, institutional researchers, and faculty with an integrated volume of theory, method, and application.

Participation is a vital element of working with children and young people ensuring that services are meeting their needs as well as promoting citizenship, resilience and general well-being. The Evaluator s Cookbook contains 21 participatory evaluation exercises for use with children, young people and families/community groups. Attractively and clearly presented, the exercises are very easy to use and come with suggestions for use and instructions on how to create the equipment needed. They will appeal to a wide range of people and can be used in a variety of informal and formal settings and most of the exercises are suitable for use with disabled children or children with special needs, as well as people with English as a second language. The book also explores why, how and where participatory research and evaluation should take place and provides suggestions on how the findings can be presented in imaginative ways. This unique book is an invaluable resource for those wishing to consult with children and families or evaluate social, health and education services in diverse cultural settings.

The Education Reform Act has established assessment as the measure by which the implementation of the National Curriculum and school success will be judged. Current initiatives assume, for the first time, the possibility of a new partnership beteen curriculum and assessment. This book is designed to provide a practical understanding of recent examination and assessment developments at secondary level, and will be particularly useful to students and practising teachers. It examines the introduction of the GCSE, the use of profiling, equal opportunities issues, examinations at 16+ and the assessment of school-leavers for training and employment. It also include a brief historical account of the development of secondary education. The fairness and appropriateness of examination results are always a matter of public concern, and the final chapters, particulary, extend these issues by looking at the ways in which variety of experience and learning styles are relevant to assessment practices.

In the wake of initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and the use of high-stakes testing, the emphasis in schools has been on drill and practice for the test. Genuine understanding and critical thinking have been increasingly shortchanged. As a result, students have fewer opportunities to advance their insight into cognitive and emotional challenges, even though both teachers and parents recognize the importance of developing deliberative and reflective thinking skills. This book uniquely combines two things. First, it provides resources for classroom teachers in grades 3 - 6 that make it possible for them, at a moment's notice, to take advantage of a teachable moment by drawing students into productive intellectual discussions. Second, it gives the reader an overview of the rationale and the research base for engaging students in educational activities that are truly intellectual and that are not limited to training for testing success.

In this valuable resource, well-known scholars present a detailed understanding of contemporary theories and practices in the fields of measurement, assessment, and evaluation, with guidance on how to apply these ideas for the benefit of students and institutions. Bringing together terminology, analytical perspectives, and methodological advances, this second edition facilitates informed decision-making while connecting the latest thinking in these methodological areas with actual practice in higher education. This research handbook provides higher education administrators, student affairs personnel, institutional researchers, and faculty with an integrated volume of theory, method, and application.