This article examines social partnership in accrediting qualifications in Lithuania. It defines the factors influencing social partnership and surveys future development perspectives, referring to the creation and implementation of the national qualifications system in Lithuania. Social partnership in qualifications accreditation is regarded as a…

In the past decade, researchers have attempted to develop computer-assisted learning and testing systems to help students improve their learning performance. Conventional testing systems simply provide students with a score, and do not offer sufficient information in order to improve their learning performance. It would be of more benefit to…

As a consequence of international educational studies like TIMSS and PISA, quality of instruction has become a central topic in the discussion between educators, researchers, and policymakers. Teacher competencies are preconditions for instructional quality. This study focuses on the impact of perceived teacher competencies on student well-being…

This study examined the validity of a single-item measure of HIV risk stage of change that HIV prevention contractors were required to collect by the California State Office of AIDS. The single-item measure was compared to the more conventional University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA). Participants were members of Los Angeles…

The literature suggests that children who struggle with communication during social interactions, called "pragmatic language" in the field of speech language pathology, have fewer opportunities to engage in social practices that promote learning because of inadequate skills in interacting with others. Children with even subtle difficulties in…

Because of the importance of developing highly skilled urban school leaders, statewide assessments of 248 urban Texas public school administrators were analyzed to determine principal confidence levels in leadership skill domains identified by the National Policy Board of Educational Administration (NPBEA). Important findings indicate differences…

Because of the importance of developing highly skilled rural school leaders, statewide assessments of 259 rural Texas public school administrators were analyzed to determine principal confidence levels in leadership skill domains identified by the National Policy Board of Educational Administration (NPBEA). Important findings indicate differences…

The new "Weighted Student Formula Yearbook 2009" from the Reason Foundation provides a simple framework for touting the successes of states and urban school districts that grant greater fiscal autonomy to schools. The report defines the Weighted Student Formula (WSF) reform extremely broadly, presenting a variety of reforms under the WSF umbrella.…

A random sample of language arts, social studies, and science high school teachers (N = 361; 53% women) from the United States were surveyed about what their students wrote, their use of evidence-based writing practices, the adaptations they made for weaker writers, how they assessed writing, their preparation to teach writing, beliefs about the…

This article discusses the significant contributions of Peter H. Rossi to the field of program evaluation. It was the publication of "Evaluation: A Systematic Approach" by Peter Rossi, Howard Freeman, and Sonia Rosenbaum in 1979 that most emphatically marked the point at which program evaluation had clearly consolidated as a distinct field of…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of a webpage evaluation for embedding technology in classes for teaching school counseling and counseling program development. The instructors created the Website Evaluation Form to help students recognize qualities of webpages that would enhance the school counseling program, broaden their…

The trend in school psychology services is a shift from an emphasis on an assessment-based paradigm to one of consultation problem-solving and behavioral intervention. A critical component of consultation-derived interventions and behavior change is "treatment integrity." Treatment integrity (or fidelity) refers to the extent to which an…

The serious consequences of challenging behaviors in young children have become an increasing concern of caregivers. Without intervention, the presence of challenging behaviors in young children is associated with unfavorable outcomes in school and later life. This paper describes a synthesis of the existing knowledge related to the processes of…

Studies of test dimensionality indicate that many large-scale science assessments measure multiple dimensions. These findings have reinforced the perspective that science achievement is an inherently dynamic process and that there is benefit in reporting subscores in science. A limitation with some of these studies is that they fail to indicate…

The Beginning Educator Support and Training (BEST) Program (a performance-based assessment program) was developed to enable the Connecticut State Department of Education to implement legislation requiring beginning teachers to achieve a satisfactory evaluation on a professional knowledge clinical assessment during their initial year of teaching.…