The focus on cutting-edge developments in measurement and assessment ensures that this book will have a long shelf-life. Response process data is an important tool in a variety of educational contexts - from determining validity for non-native speakers to analysing cognitive disabilities - making this text useful for educational researchers with many different focuses. The comprehensive approach of this book, including both theoretical and practical information, will position it as the definitive resource on the subject within the market. The increasing use of technology within educational assessment ensures, by making it so much more easily attainable, the increasing relevance of this kind of data.

Assessments, understood as tools for tracking what and how well students have learned, play a critical role in the classroom. Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards develops an approach to science assessment to meet the vision of science education for the future as it has been elaborated in A Framework for K-12 Science Education (Framework) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These documents are brand new and the changes they call for are barely under way, but the new assessments will be needed as soon as states and districts begin the process of implementing the NGSS and changing their approach to science education. The new Framework and the NGSS are designed to guide educators in significantly altering the way K-12 science is taught. The Framework is aimed at making science education more closely resemble the way scientists actually work and think, and making instruction reflect research on learning that demonstrates the importance of building coherent understandings over time. It structures science education around three dimensions - the practices through which scientists and engineers do their work, the key crosscutting concepts that cut across disciplines, and the core ideas of the disciplines - and argues that they should be interwoven in every aspect of science education, building in sophistication as students progress through grades K-12. Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards recommends strategies for developing assessments that yield valid measures of student proficiency in science as described in the new Framework. This report reviews recent and current work in science assessment to determine which aspects of the Framework's vision can be assessed with available techniques and what additional research and development will be needed to support an assessment system that fully meets that vision. The report offers a systems approach to science assessment, in which a range of assessment strategies are designed to answer different kinds of questions with appropriate degrees of specificity and provide results that complement one another. Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards makes the case that a science assessment system that meets the Framework's vision should consist of assessments designed to support classroom instruction, assessments designed to monitor science learning on a broader scale, and indicators designed to track opportunity to learn. New standards for science education make clear that new modes of assessment designed to measure the integrated learning they promote are essential. The recommendations of this report will be key to making sure that the dramatic changes in curriculum and instruction signaled by Framework and the NGSS reduce inequities in science education and raise the level of science education for all students.

The focus on cutting-edge developments in measurement and assessment ensures that this book will have a long shelf-life. Response process data is an important tool in a variety of educational contexts - from determining validity for non-native speakers to analysing cognitive disabilities - making this text useful for educational researchers with many different focuses. The comprehensive approach of this book, including both theoretical and practical information, will position it as the definitive resource on the subject within the market. The increasing use of technology within educational assessment ensures, by making it so much more easily attainable, the increasing relevance of this kind of data.

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education.
The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective?
At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning.
Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored.
With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.

Americans have long recognized that investments in public education contribute to the common good, enhancing national prosperity and supporting stable families, neighborhoods, and communities. Education is even more critical today, in the face of economic, environmental, and social challenges. Today's children can meet future challenges if their schooling and informal learning activities prepare them for adult roles as citizens, employees, managers, parents, volunteers, and entrepreneurs. To achieve their full potential as adults, young people need to develop a range of skills and knowledge that facilitate mastery and application of English, mathematics, and other school subjects. At the same time, business and political leaders are increasingly asking schools to develop skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and self-management - often referred to as "21st century skills." Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century describes this important set of key skills that increase deeper learning, college and career readiness, student-centered learning, and higher order thinking. These labels include both cognitive and non-cognitive skills- such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, effective communication, motivation, persistence, and learning to learn. 21st century skills also include creativity, innovation, and ethics that are important to later success and may be developed in formal or informal learning environments. This report also describes how these skills relate to each other and to more traditional academic skills and content in the key disciplines of reading, mathematics, and science. Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century summarizes the findings of the research that investigates the importance of such skills to success in education, work, and other areas of adult responsibility and that demonstrates the importance of developing these skills in K-16 education. In this report, features related to learning these skills are identified, which include teacher professional development, curriculum, assessment, after-school and out-of-school programs, and informal learning centers such as exhibits and museums. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Introduction 2 A Preliminary Classification of Skills and Abilities 3 Importance of Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills 4 Perspectives on Deeper Learning 5 Deeper Learning of English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science 6 Teaching and Assessing for Transfer 7 Systems to Support Deeper Learning References Appendix A: 21st Century Skills and Competencies Included in the OECD Survey Appendix B: Reports on 21st Century Skills Used in Aligning and Clustering Competencies Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members Index

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary 1 Rethinking the Foundations of Assessment 2 The Nature of Assessment and Reasoning from Evidence INTRODUCTION 3 Advances in the Sciences of Thinking and Learning 4 Contributions of Measurement and Statistical Modeling to Assessment INTRODUCTION 5 Implications of the New Foundations for Assessment Design 6 Assessment in Practice 7 Information Technologies: Opportunities for Advancing Educational Assessment 8 Implications and Recommendations for Research, Policy, and Practice References Appendix Biographical Sketches Index

The Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERF) is a bold, ambitious plan that proposes a revolutionary program of education research and development (R&D). Its purpose is to construct a powerful knowledge base, derived from both research and practice, that will support the efforts of teachers, school administrators, colleges of education, and policy officials--with the ultimate goal of significantly improving student learning. With a vision of multiple networks through which focused, coordinated, and sustained programs of R&D would be carried out--often in schools or school districts that serve as field sites--the National Research Council proposed an organizational design that would implement the essential mission of SERP. The essence of that plan was captured in "Strategic Education Research Partnership. Following up with specifics on one of the networks proposed in that earlier book, "Learning and Instruction details the kind of research and development that would make a genuine difference to teaching and learning in three subject areas--reading, mathematics, and science. The proposals in this book have the potential to substantially improve the knowledge base that supports teaching and learning by pursuing answers to questions at the core of teaching practice. It calls for the linking of research and development including instructional programs, assessment tools, teacher education programs and materials. Best of all, the book provides a solid framework for a program of research and development that will be genuinely useful to classroom teachers.