The process of giving official acknowledgment to formal, informal and non-formal prior learning is commonly labelled as assessment, accreditation or recognition of prior learning (APL), representing a practice that is expanding in higher education in many countries. This paper focuses specifically on the assessment part of APL, which undoubtedly…

More than half of the colleges and universities in the U.S. require entering freshmen to present scores on the American College Test (ACT) as a condition of admission. Within recent years, colleges and universities have been asked to determine procedures whereby prior educational achievement and life experiences could be evaluated and college…

An approach to partitioning the variance in student ratings not previously reported in the literature is described. The new approach provides an alternative basis for interpreting faculty evaluations that overcome objections to current practices. Student responses on evaluation forms were cluster-analyzed to establish homogeneous subgroups of…

The American College Testing Program (ACT) was founded as an inviolate public trust, and operates as a nonprofit corporation governed by educational representatives from individual states or regions and a Board of Trustees. A fundamental goal of the program is to exercise educational leadership by conducting testing, information-gathering,…

Describes a simplified method for converting raw scores to standard scores and transforming them to "T-scores" for easy comparison of performance. Obtaining letter grades from T-scores is discussed. A reading list is included. (GH)

This paper reports an in-depth study of Moore and Sutman's Scientific Attitude Inventory (SAI) and of the 30 studies in which the instrument has been used. Findings from these 30 research studies reveal a wealth of information including: (1) conflicting results when similar treatments are used by different investigators; (2) varied values of the…

Fictitious student evaluations of a faculty member's teaching performance are presented to the reader in an exercise in interpreting such information. Evaluator comments reveal a widespread divergence of views. (MSE)

Considers the need for and status of assessment literacy for teachers. The article examines whether teachers need to assess, whether there are preservice assessment courses, what assessment courses should teach, what topics are covered in other courses, what is happening with assessment in the schools, and what is needed. (SM)

The biasing effects of a pretest on subsequent post-test results were investigated in two experimental studies. In general, the results argue for using designs without pretests. (Author/JKS)

While student evaluations of teaching performance can provide useful feedback on faculty, particularly on dimensions of course delivery, there are serious limitations. Bias and distrust are often overlooked in interpreting student ratings. An inappropriate use is in rank-ordering faculty in a department. Student evaluation data must be integrated…

Describes the addition of a writing performance assessment to the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), and how development of the Analysis of Argument measure and the Persuasive Adaptiveness measure helps explain the holistic writing score given during grading of the GMAT. Correlates holistic and analytic scores, revealing a positive…

Discussion of student evaluation of college teaching in four European countries (United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, Germany) focuses on concerns about test bias. Factors specific to the higher education systems in those countries that could affect student evaluation and other related issues are examined. (Author/MSE)

Various combinations of nonlinear transformations were applied to responses to a clinical performance evaluation instrument that uses a four-point behaviorally anchored scale. The factorial structure of the 15 items constituting the evaluation form was minimally affected by the transformations, suggesting that parametric statistics can be applied…

The questions of whether undergraduate students use different processes in evaluating their own learning in a course, and whether such differences are related to differences in personality development or cognitive development were studied. It was predicted that students possessing well developed abstract conceptual structures would show a more…

Many clinicians are reluctant to discuss test results with clients. The four articles of this special section (1) explore ethical issues involved in discussing test results with clients; (2) illustrate the test feedback process for neuropsychological evaluation; and (3) examine the impact of test feedback on the individual's functioning. (SLD)