The ever-increasing internationalization of study programs and global mobility of students call for greater transparency of and valid information on the knowledge and skills students acquire over the course of their studies. Several theoretical and methodological challenges arise from the immense diversity of degree courses, study programs, and…

Psychometrics has recently undergone extensive criticism within the medical education literature. The use of quantitative measurement using psychometric instruments such as response scales is thought to emphasize a narrow range of relevant learner skills and competencies. Recent reviews and commentaries suggest that a paradigm shift might be…

This study investigates how well prepared student teachers are to implement species identification in school. Data were collected with the help of a questionnaire and a PowerPoint presentation in which local plant and animal species were presented. Participants (n = 357) correctly identified, on average, 23% of the plants and 44% of the animals.…

This paper outlines the process and results of an authentic assessment of student work using a revised version of the AAC&U's Information Literacy VALUE rubric. This rigorous assessment, which included the scoring of nearly 900 student papers from four different stages across the undergraduate curriculum, revealed much about the process of…

The ability to purposefully access, reflect, and use evidence from educational research (Educational Research Literacy) is expected of future professionals in educational practice. Based on the presented conceptual framework, a test instrument was developed to assess the different competency aspects: Information Literacy, Statistical Literacy, and…

The process of program evaluation was utilized to evaluate the education program, provide information to make decisions on its ability to comply with mandates from the state education department, and develop or improve the program to meet the goals of the new initiative to meet the needs of English language learners. The program evaluation process…

Purpose: The purpose of the research was to develop a competency-based performance appraisal resource for evaluating school nutrition (SN) managers and assistants/technicians. Methods: A two-phased process was used to develop the competency-based performance appraisal resource for SN managers and assistants/technicians. In Phase I, draft…

Much of the research on students' understanding of the greenhouse effect and global warming reports poor results. Students are claimed to hold misconceptions and naive beliefs, and the impact of teaching on their conceptions is also low. In the present study, these results are called into question, and it is argued that they may to a large extent…

This paper examines the use of development centre methodology to measure the gap in performance for fieldwork staff in a social welfare organisation. The process follows the construction of a capability framework, a set of work-based simulations for participants and the use of a 360-degree instrument. These processes are combined to measure and…

Discusses problems in designing and interpreting research on the effects of topics used in essay exams, particularly minimum competency exams. Reviews current research on the effects of topics and their presentation. (HTH)

Setting standards for the purpose of certification is frequently performed using judgmental techniques such as the Angoff method. This study was performed to identify types of items that judges find hard to rate accurately, that is, types of items on which examinees perform differently than predicted by the judges. Once identified these item types…

Instructional validity of the Florida graduation test and the degree to which students were given proper preparation to pass it were studied. The Florida model illustrates procedures are available to demonstrate to the court that required skills are being taught to prepare students for success on competency tests. (DWH)

The efforts of researchers to produce a pool of approximately 30 validated and field-tested topics for use in future administrations of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination in writing are reviewed in this paper. Various sections of the paper (1) describe the procedures followed; (2) explain the reasons for making certain important…

Using a statewide sample of prospective teachers' results on the National Teacher Examinations (NTE), the investigation probed relationships between NTE Composite Scores, Weighted Common Examination Total (WCET) scores, and WCET subscores with selected predictor variables, specifically, American College Testing (ACT) Composite and Area Scores.…

This report deals with ways to report basic skills test data which would facilitate the identification of student weaknesses. Under study are the technical aspects and methods associated with the reporting of objective-referenced data. An exploration is then made into the use of patterns of errors in responding to basic skills test items to…