The article focuses on the realisation of participatory evaluation (PE) in national educational evaluation activity. The realisation of PE is examined by adapting the Daigneault and Jacob model (2009; originally Cousins & Whitmore, 1998) to five national-level educational evaluations carried out in Finland. According to the chosen frame of…

This article concludes the special issue of "Studies in Educational Evaluation" concerned with "Evaluating learning pattern development in higher education" by discussing research issues that have emerged from the previous contributions. The article considers in turn: stability versus variability in learning patterns; old versus new analytic…

This article describes an evaluation method based on collaboration between the higher education, a care home and university, in a R&D project. The aim of the project was to elaborate modelling as a tool of developmental evaluation for innovation and competence in project cooperation. The approach was based on activity theory. Modelling enabled a…

This paper focuses on an unceremonious type of formative assessment--"informal formative assessment"--in which much of what teachers and students do in the classroom can be described as potential assessments that can provide evidence about the students' level of understanding. More specifically, the paper focuses on assessment conversations, or…

In many European languages, the words "assessment" and "evaluation" are synonymous, but in English the two terms are used differently. Educational "assessment" is learner-focused and part of professional pedagogy, relating directly to the accountability of practitioners and schools to learners and their families.…

A prerequisite for AfL to be successfully implemented in the classroom is the teachers' assessment practice. In many contexts, including the Norwegian, AfL has not been successfully dealt with during initial teacher education, and there is a need for qualified teachers to engage in professional development in AfL. This article first discusses…

This article describes the approach of dynamic assessment, focusing on general approaches as well as specific constraints for the assessment of reading competence. Starting with an overview of the literature on dynamic assessments within educational research, the framework of dynamic assessment in which the current level of competence and…

This paper synthesizes the existing literature on stakeholder involvement in program evaluation, drawing a basic distinction between deep involvement of a few versus less active involvement of a broad range of stakeholders. The paper then comments on the case studies described in this special issue and integrates them with previously published…

Pupil monitoring systems support the teacher in tailoring teaching to the individual level of a student and in comparing the progress and results of teaching with national standards. The systems are based on the availability of an item bank calibrated using item response theory. The assessment of the students' progress and results can be further…

This article presents a method for computer-aided tutor evaluation: Bayesian Networks are used for organizing the collected data about tutors and for enabling accurate estimations and predictions about future tutor behavior. The model provides indications about each tutor's strengths and weaknesses, which enables the evaluator to exploit strengths…

In this essay, we describe our experiences working with a rebellious primary stakeholder, Sylvia, as evaluators of a district-wide safe schools program. Given the breadth of the program and its multiple target constituencies, we were confronted with the challenges of managing a large number of stakeholders, or those individuals and groups that…

High quality assessment practice is expected to yield valid and useful score-based interpretations about what the examinees know and are able to do with respect to a defined target domain. Given this assertion, the article presents a framework based on the "unified view of validity," advanced by Cronbach and Messick over two decades ago, to assist…

This article discusses the positive and negative consequences of large-scale testing on five key stakeholders of testing results: students, teachers, administrators, policymakers and parents. The factors that affect the nature of testing consequences are also discussed and means that may provide remedies for associated pitfalls are proposed.

Makes the case that both internal and external evaluation are needed in the assessment of educational systems. Suggests some conditions have to be met to establish a constructive dialogue between internal and external evaluation. (SLD)

Addresses the lack of congruence between different curricular and evaluation ideologies and the lack of sensitivity regarding underlying theoretical assumptions in curriculum evaluation practices from a perspective that calls for a joint ontological and epistemological view of the curriculum and curriculum evaluation. Explores curriculum as a…