Although International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement-pioneered international large-scale assessment (ILSA) of education is now a well-established science, non-practitioners and many users often substantially misunderstand how large-scale assessments are conducted, what questions and challenges they are designed to…

The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) has been planned as an ongoing program of assessment. The first cycle of the assessment has involved two "rounds." The first round, which is covered by this report, took place over the period of January 2008-October 2013. The main features of the first cycle of…

The overall aim of this volume of essays is to honor Frank B. Murray's commitments to empirically-based quality assurance and to the development of increasingly effective systems of quality control in educator preparation programs. As the editors approached the authors with the invitation to contribute an essay, two characteristic aspects of…

The history of ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) arises in the late 1990s when the first formal procedures for quality assurance begun to stabilize on a national level. As a result of the European Pilot Projects in the field of external quality assurance during the nineties, participants felt the need for…

"The Future of Educational Entrepreneurship" examines the challenge of creating innovative and productive entrepreneurial activity in American education. In the course of exploring these challenges, the book considers a number of crucial issues and circumstances: existing "barriers to entry" that prohibit or obstruct entrepreneurial efforts; the…

Will the digital-learning movement repeat the mistakes of the charter-school movement? How much more successful might today's charter universe look if yesterday's proponents had focused on the policies and practices needed to ensure its quality, freedom, and resources over the long term? What mistakes might have been avoided? Damaging scandals…

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)'s Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) provides internationally comparative data about students' reading achievement in primary school (the fourth grade in most participating countries). PIRLS also provides extensive information about the home and…

This volume is a detailed and up-to-date reference work providing an authoritative overview of the main issues in higher education around the world today. Consisting of newly commissioned chapters and impressive journal articles, it surveys the state of the discipline and includes the examination and discussion of emerging, controversial and…

The main objective of this research is to analyze the current status, the existing mechanisms for the regulation and quality assurance, and the impact of transnational commercial provision on the higher education system in six developing countries and a country in transition. The case-study research: (1) analyzed the principal forms and…

South-East Asia is a region of vast development diversity but also many commonalities. And the development of higher education in the region, stemmed from its different historical background is changing rapidly towards their respective socio-economic needs. The publication is a joint research study by UNESCO Bangkok and Southeast Asian Ministers…