For assessments that use different forms in different administrations, equating methods are applied to ensure comparability of scores over time. Ideally, a score scale is well maintained throughout the life of a testing program. In reality, instability of a score scale can result from a variety of causes, some are expected while others may be…

Assuring the quality of education is a concern of learning institutions. To do so, it is necessary to have assertive learning management, with consistent data on students' outcomes. This research provides associate deans and researchers, a roadmap with which to gather evidence to improve the quality of open-ended assessments. Based on statistical…

Students are assessed by coursework and/or exams, all of which are marked by assessors (markers). Student and marker performances are then subject to end-of-session board of examiner handling and analysis. This occurs annually and is the basis for evaluating students but also the wider learning and teaching efficiency of an academic institution.…

To facilitate the chemistry education community in locating and evaluating published assessment instruments, the Chemistry Instrument Review and Assessment Library (CHIRAL) encompasses a number of resources. First and foremost, CHIRAL contains a catalog of over 500 assessment instruments that is easily searchable, allowing for the identification…

Programme evaluation has developed tremendously over the past 50 years, with a proliferation of evaluation research, an increase in the institutionalization of evaluation, and growth in the professionalization of evaluation. However, existing research and developments are still largely in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, with…

Assessment refers to a broad array of approaches for measuring or evaluating a person's (or group of persons') skills, behaviors, dispositions, or other attributes. Assessments range from standardized tests used in admissions, employee selection, licensure examinations, and domestic and international largescale assessments of cognitive and…

The concept of 'approaches to learning' (Marton, 1976) has long assumed a position of central importance in the analysis of student learning outcomes. However, constructing effective measures of students' approaches to learning is a complex task, and it is an empirical question whether such measures transfer well across contexts. In this paper, we…

Have teachers become too dependent on points? This article explores educators' dependency on their points systems, and the ways that points can distract teachers from really analyzing students' capabilities and achievements. Feldman argues that using a more subjective grading system can help illuminate crucial information about students and what…

Digitally enhanced learning and teaching is widely used across the European Higher Education Area, with general acceptance growing over the years and institutions widely acknowledging the benefits it brings to the student experience. The strategic focus being placed on digitally enhanced learning and teaching has increased, undoubtedly accelerated…

Dynamic measurement modeling (DMM) has been shown to improve the consequential validity of longitudinal mathematics assessment in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) database. Here, the authors demonstrate the capability of DMM to similarly improve the consequential validity of ECLS-K reading assessment through the…

In this article, Hartley notes the difficulties of using questionnaires to assess the efficiency of new instructional methods and highlights nine issues that researchers must consider. Hartley continues the discussion about the use of questionnaires and suggests that psychology teachers can help improve the teaching of psychology by drawing…

The Scylla and Charybdis in this discussion of teacher evaluation are standardized achievement test data on the one hand, and classroom observational systems on the other. These are the two most common methods used to judge teachers' competency. Both have serious flaws: the former primarily with validity, the latter primarily with reliability. At…

This article provides a critical evaluation of a technique of analysis, the "Social Activity Method," recently offered by Dowling (2013) as a "gift" to mathematics education. The method is found to be inadequate, firstly, because it employs a dichotomy (between "expression" and "content") instead of a finer…

Qualifications provide evidence of students' achievements against subject content in a specification, giving students the confidence that the skills, knowledge and understanding that they will have acquired during the course of their study provides a strong foundation for further academic and vocational study, and for employment. United Kingdom…

There is something incalculable about teacher expertise and whether it can be observed, detected, quantified, and as per current educational policies, used as an accountability tool to hold America's public school teachers accountable for that which they do (or do not do well). In this commentary, authors (all of whom are former public school…