Educational institutions worldwide conduct summative examinations to evaluate academic performance of students. Such summative examinations are normally subjective in nature in higher education institutions and needs manual evaluation. However, the manual evaluation of subjective answer-scripts often suffers from evaluation anomalies and the…

Although the use of simulation to teach the sampling distribution of the mean is meant to provide students with sound conceptual understanding, it may lead them astray. We discuss a misunderstanding that can be introduced or reinforced when students who intuitively understand that "bigger samples are better" conduct a simulation to…

Every measurement in science, every experimental decision, result and information drawn from it has to cope with something that has long been named by the term "error". In fact, errors describe our limitations when it comes to experimental science and science looks back on a long tradition to cope with them. The widely known way to cope…

Evidence from recent research suggests that in the UK the public perception of errors in national examinations is that they are simply mistakes; events that are preventable. This perception predominates over the more sophisticated technical view that errors arise from many sources and create an inevitable variability in assessment outcomes. The…

The interpretation of cognitive test scores often leads to decisions concerning the diagnosis, educational placement, and types of interventions used for children. Therefore, it is important that practitioners administer and score cognitive tests without error. This study assesses the frequency and types of examiner errors that occur during the…

The author has discovered that errors in grades often occur when scores are combined for final marks. These errors are not related to the grading individual assignments. Rather, they occur when teachers at all grade levels bring individual test and assignment scores together for the students' final grades. Unfortunately, professors of mathematics…

An August 1997 report from the Office of the State Auditor, this document contains the results of an enrollment audit of Texas' Public Community and Technical Colleges. It recommends that no adjustments be made to the Public Community and Technical Colleges' 1998-1999 biennial appropriations, due to the fact that the $7.7 million in errors…