Internationally, many assessment systems rely predominantly on human raters to score examinations. Arguably, this facilitates the assessment of multiple sophisticated educational constructs, strengthening assessment validity. It can introduce subjectivity into the scoring process, however, engendering threats to accuracy. The present objectives…

The primary goal of this paper is to present the theoretical basis and application of two types of cognitive maps, concept map and mind map, and explain how they can be used by educational researchers in engineering design research. Cognitive mapping techniques can be useful to researchers as they study students' problem solving strategies…

We compared how 8 religious believers (historians and clergy) and 8 skeptics (historians and scientists) read a series of documents on 2 topics: the Biblical Exodus and the origins of the first (American) Thanksgiving. Readings by religiously committed historians differed from those of their non-religious peers. Navigating between the competing…

This paper presents an empirical evaluation of automated writing evaluation (AWE) feedback used for L2 academic writing teaching and learning. It introduces the Intelligent Academic Discourse Evaluator (IADE), a new web-based AWE program that analyzes the introduction section to research articles and generates immediate, individualized, and…

In this article, we set out to assess QuADEM (Quality Assessment of Digital Educational Material), one of the latest methods for evaluating online language learning courseware. What is special about QuADEM is that the evaluation is based on observing the actual usage of the online courseware and that, from a checklist of 12 different components,…

The Structured Observation System (SOS) is a data collection method developed to document changes in the communication behaviours of children identified with speech and language delays. The system employs a rating scale which reflects the occurrence of communication behaviours as well as the amount of assistance needed for behaviours to occur.…

The Internet is a significant information resource for students due to the ease of access it allows to a vast amount of information. As the quality of the information on the Internet varies, it is important that students are able to evaluate such information critically. The aim of the study was to investigate how students evaluate Internet sources…

Discusses advantages and limitations of six usability evaluation methods (heuristic evaluation, pluralistic walk-throughs, formal usability inspections, empirical methods, cognitive walk-throughs, and formal design analysis) and six data collection techniques (verbal reports, concurrent think-aloud method, questionnaire, video analysis,…

A model for the recalibration of teacher assessment that assesses and evaluates in one operation is formulated. The instructional effectiveness coefficient is discussed as an edumetric device, and a new research-evaluation model that is quantitatively intuitive and empirical is formulated. The model is nonstochastic in its logic. (Author/SLD)

The evaluation of virtual community usage and user behaviour has its roots in social science approaches such as interview, document analysis and survey. Little evaluation is carried out using traffic or protocol analysis. Business approaches to evaluating customer/business web site usage are more advanced, in particular using advanced web…

This report characterizes human problem solving in digital circuit design. Protocols of 11 different designers with varying degrees of training were analyzed by identifying the designers' problem solving strategies and discussing activity patterns that differentiate the designers. These methods are proposed as a tentative basis for assessing…

The present study investigated the influence of word processing on the writing of students of English as a second language (ESL) and on writing assessment as well. Twenty-one adult Mandarin-Chinese speakers with advanced English proficiency living in Toronto participated in the study. Each participant wrote two comparable writing tasks under…

Online delivery methods offer much promise for anytime, anywhere adult learning. As a method of outreach, and to provide support for just-in-time learning, teacher educators are increasingly deciding to design Web sites that are online, resource-based learning environments for teachers and preservice teachers. Automated evaluation tools and data…

The methodology developed for the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications' evaluation of the "New Pathways to a Degree" projects funded by the Annenberg/CPB Project is described. This methodology provides an approach for conducting a valid, reliable evaluation effort that is sensitive to specific institutional issues and…

As World Wide Web access expands into schools and homes, children will likely encounter the misinformation often found in this medium. This qualitative study describes strategies employed by sophisticated adult World Wide Web users as they evaluate authentic Web information with the purpose of adapting these strategies for children in K-12…