According to accreditation and professional bodies, evaluation and grading are a high priority in counselor education. Specifications grading, an evaluative tool, can be used to increase grading rigor. This article describes the components of specifications grading and applies the framework of specifications grading to a counseling theories course.

In state needs assessment meetings held in late June 2008, the leadership of two Central Region state departments of education, South Dakota and Missouri, asked Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Central to determine how the states in the region evaluate their supplemental educational service (SES) providers. Specifically, these SEA staff…

Contract grading has achieved some prominence in our field as a practice associated with critical pedagogy. In this context we describe a hybrid grading contract where students earn a course grade of B based not on our evaluation of their writing quality but solely on their completion of the specified activities. The contract lists activities…

This essay responds to Jane Danielewicz's and Peter Elbow's recent piece on contract grading in "College Composition and Communication" (December 2009). I discuss the similarities of their approach to my own contract process, finding that we share a quantitative/performative method for grading. I also explore our differences. While they guarantee…

The concept of accountability, or fixing responsibility for outcomes in education, is not new. As far back as 1912, administrators were responding enthusiastically to the idea of assessing teacher performance by objective criteria. Currently, the focus of the accountability movement is on evaluation. An evaluation procedure that would assist in…

This paper suggests guidelines designed for use by speech communication teachers in assessing the competency of their students. The author proposes four kinds of evaluation of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning (three types of learning essential for the speech communication classroom): placement, formative, diagnostic, and summative.…

This speech discusses performance contracting as educational research, notes some evaluation problems, and proposes solutions to these problems. The term performance contracting, according to the report, denotes an administrative rather than an instructional innovation. The author observes that the understanding of instruction and learning derived…

This paper discusses the utility, versatility, and pros and cons of the formal performance appraisal as one of the tools of management by objectives (MBO). Rather than rating the traits of an employee, performance appraisal based on MBO rates an employee's achievements toward both his professional goals and institutional goals. The paper outlines…

The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) organized a conference in May 1994 around the theme of assessment for better student learning. The chapters in this collection constitute a selection of the 32 conference presentations. All have been rewritten for this book, although Dary Erwin's chapter (chapter 3) was especially written…

A discussion of performance contracting, defined as an agreement between a group offering instruction and a school needing the services, is presented. Four major hazards to direct measurement of specific learning are considered: poor statement of objectives; selection of the wrong tests; misinterpretation of test scores; and depersonalization of…

This Educational Testing Service conference provided an opportunity to clarify many of the issues and problems involved with educational accountability. Among these issues were assessment, evaluation, auditing, and performance contracting. The papers included in these proceedings are: The Means and Ends of Accountability (Terrel H. Bell); Issues…

This document provides the necessary instructions and forms for submission of a rapid learning center performance contract proposal as part of a 4-year dropout prevention program. Contract performance proposals are to embody mathematics and/or reading, and to involve students enrolled in grades 7-12 who are two or more grade levels deficient in…

In Part I of this report, educational accountability is viewed as being composed of three types. They are: goal, program, and outcome accountability. In addition, three accountability schemes which are considered exemplary of the kinds of proposals presently made and which cover a broad range of accountability types are also discussed. The schemes…

Metropolitan State University, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, is a competence-based, baccalaureate-degree-granting institution created in 1971 to serve adults. The Operational Models Project was designed to improve the university's program for assessing experiential learning. Specific purposes of the project were: (1) to describe a program for…