Simulated testing has become more prevalent in higher education, especially as competency-based institutions begin to incorporate micro-credentials and skills certificates into their curriculum. Competency-based assessment falls outside traditional norm-based testing practices used in K-12 education, and is largely focused on criterion referenced…

Increasingly content area projects and programs at the K-12 level, such as in mathematics, involve a programmatic component or project emphasis on developing "teacher leadership". However, there is no consistent definition or framework for this construct and even fewer validated tools for measuring it. This paper describes our efforts in…

This research aimed to develop an assessment tool for students' Positive Experiences about Science (PES). A preliminary version of PSE was developed through literature review, consisting of academic emotion, self-concept, learning motivation, career aspiration, and attitude in science. A pilot test was conducted with 198 students and a main test…

Qualitative researchers have for some time followed recommendations to analyze both "how" interview data are generated in addition to "what" is discussed. Yet little has been written about the challenges of representing these sorts of analyses. This paper discusses the challenges of presenting methodological analyses of…

The purpose of this paper is to inform evaluators of a method of evaluating capacity building in educational programs. One definition of capacity building is helping an organization increase its ability to fulfill its mission (Wing, 2004). Evaluators of capacity-building efforts therefore must focus on evidence that the program has helped to build…

The advertising program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) has at least 12 measures of program assessment, which serve as a basis for discussion rather than as a prescription for an effective assessment program. The program assessment methods are accrediting, internal program review, teaching evaluations, a university survey of…

A system was developed to allow an observer/evaluator to objectively evaluate inservice teacher training workshops along twelve dimensions covering content, method of presentation, and participation, using a series of objective observable criteria identified by program administrators. The system provided a comprehensive evaluation of staff…

The usefulness of a Client Characteristics Checklist that has been used in many programs sponsored by the Wilder Foundation over 10 years was studied. The checklist is used to document a variety of potential risk factors and descriptive characteristics of individuals and families served by Foundation programs. Client characteristics across the…

A scaling procedure has been developed for ordering binary parallelogram preference data. The procedure uses minimum variance of the item ranks averaged across persons as the optimization criterion. Two seriation strategies are employed. One is pairwise interchange. The second joins together the vector end points and breaks this circle between…

The relative worth of any evaluation instrument depends on user needs and the material being evaluated. Potential users of a good computer assisted instruction (CAI) instrument include purchasers, authors, reviewers, and publishers of CAI materials. Although each user has unique needs, a good instrument will serve both to educate and discriminate,…

The paper discusses a new battery of tests, the Assessment of Basic Competencies, designed for fair assessment of the latent abilities of minority group children. It is explained that the tests provide diagnostic assessment in several domains of competence that are considered important for school learning. The three domains, information…

The speaker begins his presentation by reviewing the literature on merit programs, both for teachers and for administrators, and summarizing the pros and cons of such programs. He then discusses the development of the merit pay program operating in his district. The initial and most important step in planning that program was developing a…

A recently developed instrument was used to evaluate principals to determine if they live up to expected standards. The instrument, Principal Profile, had been developed several years before the study but had only been administered to graduate students and teachers seeking to become administrators. In the spring of 2001, the superintendent of…

Students' perceptions of assessment activities are the focus of this research. An instrument, Perceptions of Assessment of Teachers by Students, was developed in a primary version (kindergarten through grade 3) with a pictorial scale and a senior version (grades 4 through 12) with a 5-point Likert scale. Fifteen teachers returned the student…

One goal of site-based management in schools is to move decision making on policy issues closer to the point of implementation. Therefore it is important for teachers and administrators at a site to have the information and assistance necessary to make informed decisions. To help site personnel gain this information and evaluate data, a "site…