Self-assessment practices have been advocated in recent Irish educational documents due to their potential to enhance school children's learning and self-regulatory skills. However, the literature has highlighted how some children struggle to make accurate self-assessments of their academic work, which diminishes such positive effects (Keane and…

Value-added "Progress" measures are to be introduced for all English schools in 2016 as "headline" measures of school performance. This move comes despite research highlighting high levels of instability in value-added measures and concerns about the omission of contextual variables in the planned measure. This article studies…

Principals and teachers do not use large-scale assessment results because the lack of distinct and reliable subtests prevents identifying strengths and weaknesses of students and instruction, the results arrive too late to be used, and principals and teachers need assistance to use the results to improve instruction so as to improve student…

School improvement is much sought and often claimed. However, it is questionable whether overall achievement in countries such as the USA or England has improved by any significant amount over thirty years. Several school improvement programmes have been claimed as successful, but evaluations, even where they exist, are generally poor: based on…

Value-added measures can be used to allocate funding to schools, to identify those institutions in need of special attention and to underpin government guidance on targets. In England, there has been a tendency to include in these measures an ever-greater number of contextualising variables and to develop ever-more complex models that encourage…

Presents an overview of problems associated with assessment of practical work in science. Identifies two theoretical positions that present teaching and assessment flow. Examines some available evidence on possible assessment methods that articulate with these two positions. Considers a position adopted by the United Kingdom National Curriculum in…

This paper examines the current academic and policy literatures concerning school evaluation in primary and secondary education within the OECD countries. First, it provides a typology of the existing systems of school evaluation across the OECD. It encompasses the diverse criteria and instruments commonly used to carry out schools evaluation, as…

Argues that the assessment of scholastic achievement should be based on a primary system of reference formed by the structures of educational objectives, corresponding to both the logical organization of the subject matter and the mental logic of its acquisition. Uses research in written language and elementary mathematics to illustrate binding…

Like many countries, Norway in the 1980s decentralized many government functions including public education. However, there was concern over maintaining common national education goals and evaluating schools' performance. Decentralization in schools also included school-based evaluation, evaluation done by and in the school. Three studies of…

States that educational research has yielded adequately tested theories and empirical results to establish criteria for the legal review of student evaluation in West German schools. Discusses problems associated with the legal review of student evaluation, particularly the danger of limiting review to superficial aspects of the evaluation…

Describes assessment in the German school system as regular, systematic, and officially controlled through legislation. Emphasizes that even strict grading levels combine criterion and norm referencing because teacher determination must include a subjective element. Concludes that other systems may best learn negative lessons from the German…

Research findings suggest that teachers are not competent in student assessment and that teacher education programs do not provide adequate training in assessment techniques. A survey of 33 Canadian universities found that most prospective teachers did not complete a measurement and evaluation course. Contains 44 references. (SV)

Documents the practice of and attitudes to teacher assessment by Year Two teachers in England. Discusses assessment of process skills and the effects of assessment of children's learning and teachers' practice. Links findings with previous research and proposes a developmental model that describes and explains assessment approaches. (DSK)

Reports that the procedures for scholastic achievement in West Germany are established by the state administration, including judicial review of student evaluation. This judicial review is largely formal and not specific to schooling. Advocates the insertion of pedagogical criteria into the legal review of student assessment. (Author/LS)

The measurement of the performance of schools is complicated by the need to adjust for differences in input mixes. Schools may have a differential effect on the performance of different types of pupils. Rather than a single performance indicator, a system of indicators is needed. Characteristics of a good indicator system are identified. (KDP)