Many teaching methods investigated in higher education have been examined by social work educators, except for mastery learning. Mastery learning is a behavioral teaching method used successfully in higher education. Achievement is held constant and time allowed is varied, rather than holding time constant and allowing student achievement to vary.…

A study was conducted to investigate issues of test validation by placing them in a context. The study examined the ways in which instances of "good" and "poor" writing have been identified in the marking of part of an English writing test that is given each year to incoming Arts Faculty students at the University of Hong Kong.…

Teachers of business communication, along with teachers in other disciplines, must develop ways of responding to demands for faculty evaluation. The first section of this paper considers three questions relevant to any kind of faculty evaluation: To whom should a teacher be accountable? What criteria should be the touchstones for evaluation? and,…

This paper addresses some of the concerns inherent in evaluating feminists' projects and focuses on three topics: (1) a discussion of some objections raised by feminists about traditional forms of assessment; (2) a description of the strengths and weaknesses of illuminative evaluation as an alternative approach to evaluate feminist programs; and…

This paper describes a pilot project that investigated two key elements of the Teaching Skills Laboratory Network. The first of these was the use of a performance assessment instrument, and the second was the development of a teacher education database. In order to provide a contextual perspective, the discussion of these two items is prefaced by…

Teaching and testing for critical thinking can be a challenge for new and experienced social work educators because critical thinking has no operational definition. Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is a tool from the wider context of education that can help new and experienced social work educators to think more precisely about what it…

One problem with the outcome-based measures used in higher education is that they measure quantity but not quality. Benchmarking, or the use of some external standard of quality to measure tasks, processes, and outputs, is partially solving that difficulty. Benchmarking allows for the establishment of a systematic process to indicate if outputs…

Issues concerning students' evaluation of college faculty are discussed. Several views of this process are presented. Having identified relevant variables or paradigms, possible relationships between the variables can be studied (models and theories). The assumptions underlying these paradigms include the following: that students have a right and…

Interest inventories have been used extensively in high schools and universities to help students make career choices. To determine whether interest inventories aid students with their career development toward their college major and occupational choice, students were assigned to one of six interest inventory groups: Strong-Campbell (N=44); Kuder…

This paper shows how the concept of general objectivity can be used to improve behavioral science measurement, particularly as it applies to the Lexile Framework, a tool for objectively measuring reading comprehension. It begins with a dialogue between a physicist and a psychometrician that details some of the differences between physical science…

The role of the state government in higher education assessment is clearly expanding as both the state's interest and investment in higher education grows. Currently, patterns of state involvement vary widely--from indirect incentive programs to direct legislation or regulatory action. Institutional assessment and the resulting reform must be…

The assessment of student progress ("value added") between entering and leaving a college or university is important in any evaluation of an institution's effectiveness. In assessing progress, five propositions are worth noting. First, the assessment should deal with several dimensions of student growth, not knowledge alone. Second,…

Ways to improve the validity of assessment of college students are discussed. Validity problems often have occurred because the purpose of assessment was not clear. Traditionally, college students have been tested for admission and placement. However, the results of these tests have been used for other purposes, such as comparing institutions.…

The paper explores measurement issues surrounding acculturation, discusses the Children's Acculturation Scale (CAS), relates results of several studies dealing with the acculturation and mental health of Mexican Americans, and concludes with a substantiation of the idea that the process of acculturation is stressful and impacts on adjustment.…

A number of challenges will be faced by the school testing community in the future. The content of achievement tests must match the curriculum, which changes its focus over the years. Test content should reflect expanding curriculum areas such as computer literacy, consumer skills, and critical thinking. Test publishers will provide data for…