The professionalisation of teaching is of increasing importance in UK higher education due to converging processes including the proliferation of managerialism, increasing quality agendas and changes to student fee structures. These have brought into sharp relief the need for greater understanding of how quality teaching evolves in university…

The developing discourse which moves assessment away from a measurement model towards one of learner empowerment and the development of assessment for lifelong learning sets the context for this paper. Within this framework, we explore how the demands made on practitioners may influence current reported assessment practices. The reasons given by…

Describes a formative evaluation proposal submitted to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the United Kingdom to explore the potential impact of the Information Technology in Education Research (InTer) Program. The philosophies of evaluation and of the evaluator role are discussed, and aims and methodology of the evaluation are…

Focusing on the definition of skill transfer, this article examines the relationship between research work on transfer and various curriculum initiatives designed to promote it. Competing theories of transfer are explored, examples from medical and scientific education are described, and the National Council for Vocational Qualifications core…

Examined were the purposes and problems, as well as the present status and trends, of pre-school educational evaluation in seven European countries; Belgium, France, Germany (Federal Republic), Netherlands, Scandanavia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. These analysis required that national surveys be written which would first give brief…

Discusses research results indicating that teachers, students, parents, and employers in the United Kingdom agree that the primary goal of education is to develop student character and self-motivation. The author contends that secondary schools neglect this function because they have no objective way to measure their effectiveness. (AM)

This book is an updated account of the present use and status of performance indicators in British higher education set against the developing literature and experience of performance indicators in the United States and other countries and in view of the major shifts in higher education policy occurring in recent years. Chapter One explores key…

Drawing upon experimental work in different history departments, Mark Cottingham explores "assessment for learning" principles in practice. He raises the problem of a clash between these approaches and the progression model inherent in the National Curriculum Attainment Target, and, crucially, the way in which history departments are…

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…

In response to the increased use of the Internet for information access and dissemination, and the explosion in the availability of resources which may be of interest to end-users, a number of services are now available which provide access to selected and evaluated resources. Many existing Internet search tools are inadequate due to the high rate…