In recent years, increasing numbers of professional development programs have dealt with assessment literacy for teachers and/or administrators. Is assessment literacy merely a fashionable focus for today's professional developers or, in contrast, should it be regarded as a significant area of professional development interest for many years to…

Against a shifting set of assessment preferences in the US regarding whether educational assessment should continue to be a states rights game or become a federally dominated undertaking, the publication of five first-rate analyses about England's national curriculum assessment (NCA) is particularly propitious. Taken together, these five papers…

For the last four decades, students' scores on standardized tests have increasingly been regarded as the most meaningful evidence for evaluating U.S. schools. Most Americans, indeed, believe students' standardized test performances are the only legitimate indicator of a school's instructional effectiveness. Yet, although test-based evaluations of…

A strategy to encourage evaluation used by the Centers for Disease Control in the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) is described. DASH personnel tried to make evaluation of human immunodeficiency virus education programs more attractive by providing materials and models for evaluation. (SLD)

Many participant-satisfaction evaluation forms used in staff development programs are ritualistic contrivances that are poorly designed and administered. This article describes five rules for generating evaluation forms based on clarity, a decision focus, brevity, anonymity, and respondents' opportunity to make additional suggestions. Careful…

Argues that affective outcomes should be addressed instructionally and that student affect should be assessed formally. How student affect should be measured is considered. It is suggested that self-report measures be used and that Likert-type inventories usually meet the needs of classroom teachers. (SLD)

This paper discusses how to determine whether a test was developed in a legally defensible manner, reviewing general issues, specific cases bearing on different types of test use, some evaluative dimensions, and evidence of test quality. Tests constructed and used according to existing standards will generally stand legal scrutiny. (SLD)