This paper focuses on an unceremonious type of formative assessment--"informal formative assessment"--in which much of what teachers and students do in the classroom can be described as potential assessments that can provide evidence about the students' level of understanding. More specifically, the paper focuses on assessment conversations, or…

Stake's concept of responsive evaluation is designed to provide various decision makers with the kind of information desired and in the form most helpful for making decisions. Compared with formal research procedures, this approach has both advantages and disadvantages. It may also provide a valuable supplement to formal evaluation. (CTM)

Judgmental Policy Analysis was used to form models representing the judgmental policies of 73 educational personnel as they rated 16 programs in which characteristics were varied. Although the judges varied in criteria used and in consistency, the results illustrate potential uses of a methodology for studying the judgmental evaluative process.…

Evaluative information was collected about a history of mathematics project consisting of a play about Thales and an article about the history of conics. Methods included obtaining unstructured opinions of five experts, questionnaire responses from 39 teachers, and results of a test of affective and cognitive outcomes of 117 students. (CTM)

Informal but frequent teacher evaluations of students' academic achievement are not standardized by official prescriptions dictating which reference system is to be used. Three reference norms used when evaluating achievement are: social, criterion-oriented, and individual reference norms. (PN)

Nigeria will discontinue the use of the school leaving certificate examination and will instead rely on continuous assessment of students which is systematic, comprehensive, cumulative, and guidance-oriented. Eight evaluation criteria are suggested: achievement; personal qualities; interests; attitudes; physical health; and cocurricular, outdoor,…