Value-added models have caught the interest of policymakers because, unlike using student tests scores for other means of accountability, they purport to "level the playing field." That is, they supposedly reflect only a teacher's effectiveness, not whether she teaches high- or low-income students, for instance, or students in accelerated or…

In February 2012, the "New York Times" took the unusual step of publishing performance ratings for nearly 18,000 New York City teachers based on their students' test-score gains, commonly called value-added (VA) measures. This action, which followed a similar release of ratings in Los Angeles last year, drew new attention to the growing use of VA…

The Major Field Test in Business (MFT-B), a standardized assessment test of business knowledge among undergraduate business seniors, is widely used to measure student achievement. The Educational Testing Service, publisher of the assessment, provides data that allow institutions to compare their own MFT-B performance to national norms, but that…

This study compares the judgments that teachers make on their students' mathematics achievement with results taken from Australia's National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). Using a sample of 2144 students, drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), the study develops two regression models: one with teacher…

High-stakes testing is not a new phenomenon in education. It has become part of the education system in many countries. These tests affect the school systems, teachers, students, politicians and parents, whether that is in a positive or negative sense. High-stakes testing is associated with concepts such as a school's accountability, funding and…

How to incorporate mobile students, who enter schools/classrooms after the start of the school year, into educational performance evaluations remains to be a challenge. As mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), all states currently require that a school is accountable only if the student has been enrolled in the school for a full…

Distance Education has globally become one of the important solutions for increasing admission into the universities, decongesting campuses and efficient utilization of time and space. To ensure the sustainability of the programmes' noble objectives calls for periodic re-evaluation of its modus operandi including the assessment of the perception…

The authors investigated the results of the Educational Testing Service Major Field Test (ETS-MFT) administered to business majors at a U.S. state university. Longitudinal trends and cross-sectional differences are documented, including significant performance differences among students of different majors. Findings suggest that a cohort affect…

Within the context of standards-based educational systems, states are using large scale reading assessments to help ensure that all children have the opportunity to learn essential knowledge and skills. The challenge for developers of accessible reading assessments is to develop assessments that measure only those student characteristics that are…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference between self-contained and departmentalized classroom organization on the Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) in reading and mathematics for students in fourth and fifth grade. A secondary purpose of this study was to consider how these organizational structures affect the…

Describes the rationale underlying computerized adaptive testing (CAT), discusses the psychometric and technical developments which make it practical, and reviews some previous work which has shaped the current state of the art. The possible advantages, constraints, and operational requirements, and possible areas of application are examined.…

It is sometimes assumed that students (a) know which questions they will be best at answering in an examination, and (b) know how well they have performed after completing an examination. These hypotheses were tested for 50 dental students who completed a six-question essay examination in Human Physiology and Pharmacology. (Editor/RK)

Author looks at the controversy over school-leaving examinations in America. (Editor/RK)

The purpose of the study was to investigate how different student characteristics such as gender influence grades. In order to answer these questions, multivariate techniques were used. The data derive from The Gothenburg Educational Longitudinal Database (GOLD), and the subjects were 99,070 ninth-grade students born in 1987. The analyses were…