This article considers the politics of adoption of a testing regime in South Africa. While the broad features of this regime are similar to those in developed countries, there are features specific to the South African context. These emerge from a combination of external and internal pressures. External pressures derive from international testing…

This article demonstrates how meta-analytic techniques, that have typically been used to synthesize findings across numerous studies, can also be applied to examine the reasons why relationships between background characteristics and outcomes may vary across different locations in a single multi-site survey. This application is particularly…

Standards-based science education, with its emphasis on monitoring and accountability, is rapidly becoming a key part of the globalization of science education. Standards-based testing within countries is increasingly being used to determine the effectiveness of a country's educational system, and international testing programs such as Programme…

The purpose of this paper is to help countries understand some of the "key principles and characteristics of an effective student assessment system". The focus is on assessment of student learning and achievement at the K-12 level. The paper extracts principles and guidelines from countries' experiences, professional testing standards,…