Guidelines are presented for the development of a system for the appraisal of the performance of community college administrators. The importance of such a system to the college's overall success is discussed first, followed by descriptions of seven common evaluation procedures: (1) unstructured essays by supervisors or subordinates describing the…

With accurate information, educators are better able to make effective decisions. Besides being used to assess student performance, a complete program of data collection and use can also show educators how management skills, individual learning styles, and other elements affect student achievement. This digest in Spanish provides an overview of…

This digest addresses the role of evaluation and its basic logic, and provides a description of how the field is structured. In order to reach evaluative conclusions it is usually necessary to establish or identify factual promises and value premises. To obtain the required kind of overall evaluative conclusion, it is typically necessary to…

Career certainty refers to the degree to which individuals feel confident, or decided, about their occupational plans. Since Parsons first classified people into career-decided and career-undecided groups, counseling researchers and practitioners have worked to formally assess career choice status. These efforts have yielded two generations of…

Computer-assisted testing (CAT) in counseling and therapy is becoming increasingly common due to dramatic improvements in cost-effectiveness and increased counselor familiarity with computer applications. The assumption underlying the use of CAT is that the effectiveness of counseling is improved by allocating repetitive computational and…

Although Total Quality Management (TQM) has been adopted at a number of community colleges in the areas of financial aid, admissions and registration, and staff performance, its use is almost non-existent in the evaluation of classroom teaching. Barriers to its application to the classroom include faculty resistance to the idea of students as…

This digest discusses some of the practical implications of using alternative methods of assessing students in foreign or second language classrooms. First, assessment and testing are contrasted, and assessment is defined as an ongoing strategy through which student learning is not only monitored, but by which students are involved in making…

One of the benefits of performance based assessment is its allowance for the teacher to gather information about how the student understands and applies knowledge. In this Digest, the basic steps a teacher should take to plan and execute effective performance-based assessment are outlined. Coverage includes the steps of planning and executing…

Much of the evaluation of vocational education at the state and local levels has been conducted in response to federal legislation. Although some of the evaluative information has been useful for program improvement, much has been collected only for compliance with federal and state mandates. The educational reform movement has prompted school…

This ERIC Digest focuses on educational policy analysis at the local school district level. The digest suggests how school boards can use policy analysis as a tool for policy formation and implementation. Several aspects of school district policy analysis are covered in question-and-answer format: (1) Which role of the policy analyst is most…

After a brief overview of theory related to motor skill development in children, an update on approaches to motor development assessment and programming is provided. Descriptive/product, process-oriented/diagnostic, process/descriptive, and reflex testing approaches taken in motor ability assessment are reviewed, and some of the strengths and…

This book describes the policy initiatives and economic realities that influence the design of programs for adult English language learners, demonstrating how the agendas of each stakeholder can be reconciled in a way that renders them mutually supportive. It focuses on the commonalities among stakeholder goals. It equips instructors to provide…

The term "employability skills" refers to those skills required to acquire and retain a job. In the past, employability skills were considered primarily of a vocational or job-specific nature; they were not thought to include the academic skills most commonly taught in schools. Current thinking, however, has broadened the definition to…

Certification of professional counselors is presently viewed in two realms, that of state regulation and of national voluntary credentialing. This digest considers national voluntary certification. The first national certification began in 1972; in 1983 the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) began certification for general practice…

A portfolio is a meaningful collection of student work that tells the story of student achievement or growth. There are two basic reasons for doing portfolios--assessment or instruction. Benefits for using portfolios in instruction include the development of students self-reflection, critical thinking, responsibility for learning, and content area…