The leaders of Networks for School Improvement (NSIs) have complex, challenging jobs which require constant learning and adaptation. To support these leaders, the contributors to this volume have developed a survey-based data visualization system--the Improvement Network Health Development (INHD) Information System--designed to generate insight…

In this Point of Departure, the idea of authentic assessment is examined and troubled by drawing on Derrida's hauntology. The spectres of higher education invite us to reconsider what is 'real' about past, present, and future assessment practices. Such spectres do not lecture or produce a single, definitive interpretation. Rather, these spectres…

The author provides information about reliability and areas that educators should examine in determining if an assessment is consistent and trustworthy for use, and how it should be interpreted in making decisions about students. Reliability areas that are discussed in the column include internal consistency, test-retest or stability, inter-scorer…

Narratives that dominant the discourse of the experiences of people of color, specifically in education settings, are incomplete. Therefore, identifying methodological approaches that emphasize the perspectives of minoritized groups is essential. Counternarratives have been applied to help (re)tell stories of the oppressed to challenge dominant…

Popular item response theory (IRT) models are considered complex, mainly due to the inclusion of a random factor variable (latent variable). The random factor variable represents the incidental parameter problem since the number of parameters increases when including data of new persons. Therefore, IRT models require a specific estimation method…

Since 2018, institutions of higher education have been aware of the "enrollment cliff" which refers to expected declines in future enrollment. This paper attempts to describe how prepared institutions in Ohio are for this future by looking at trends leading up to the anticipated decline. Using IPEDS data from 2012-2022, we analyze trends…

This article presents an innovative and generalized CIPP evaluation model for breakdance courses based on Hiphop pedagogy, designed to help educators evaluate the design, implementation, and effectiveness of breakdance courses. Despite global interest in breakdance evaluation, few studies have focused on developing a comprehensive evaluation…

Dominant approaches to assessment have often limited students' ability to share their perspectives on course experiences. Further, assessment approaches are often disconnected from pedagogical practice and reinforce the status quo. In this article, we outline our critical-interpretive approach to a four-year cycle of assessments examining…

Traditional authentic assessment tasks are frequently tied to future work and enmeshed in neoliberal and capitalist visions of education. We advocate an alternative approach where authenticity signifies meaningful learning outside the confines of the classroom to promote deep learning that 'sticks'. We proffer an understanding of "assessment…

Purpose: Recent advances in artificial intelligence provide opportunities to capture and represent complex features of human language in a more automated manner, offering potential means of improving the efficiency of language assessment. This review article presents computerized approaches for the analysis of narrative language and identification…

In recent years, there has been a change in the objectives of Higher Education (HE): the inclusion of employability. The successful inclusion of employability as a goal of HE requires a change to the sector's teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) methods, which ought to be part of an HEI's strategy. In particular, there needs to be an emphasis…

Educational games help reinforce educational concepts. They help students learn through hypothesizing, probing, and reflecting upon the game environment. Understanding the impact of a game is important before deploying it in a class. Recent studies in learning analysis describe methodologies and approaches for analyzing educational games. However,…

Studies reporting flexible assessment strategies and their impact across different modes of study remain limited with little emphasis placed on the role these arrangements play in devising authentic assessment processes. This paper synthesises recent research work depicting flexible design principles and practice strategies for how educators might…

In this article, we adopt culturally relevant perspectives on developmental science that acknowledge and value the diversity of backgrounds and experiences of young children and their families to identify opportunities to advance the measurement of early childhood development. We focus on direct child assessments that can drive more equitable…

The use of digital tools for second and foreign language lexical learning is increasingly popular and research in this area is constantly expanding. However, little has been written about specific criteria that could be used to identify tools with high-quality lexical input, as available checklists and frameworks for digital media tend to neglect…