Researchers and teachers often recommend motivating exercises and use of mathematics or statistics software for the teaching of basic courses in probability and statistics. Our courses are given to large groups of engineering students at Lund Institute of Technology. We found that the mere existence of real-life data and technology in a course…

The Washington Comprehensive Assessment Program (WCAP) is a maturing and stable program. In 2016-17 it included: (1) Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBA) in English Language Arts (ELA) and math for students in grades 3-8 and high school; (2) Measurements of Student Progress (MSP) in science for grades 5 and 8; (3) End-of-Course exams in math and…

After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opened up new possibilities for how student and school success are defined and supported in American public education. States have greater responsibility for designing and building their assessment and accountability systems. These new opportunities to develop performance assessments are critically important…

The two most common models for assessment involve measuring "how well" students perform on a task (the "quality model"), and "how difficult" a task students can succeed on (the "difficulty model"). By exploiting the interactive potential of computers we may be able to use a third model: measuring "how…

This article describes the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), a postsecondary assessment tool designed to evaluate the "value-added" component of institutional contributions to student learning outcomes. Developed by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE), the instrument ostensibly focuses on the contributions of general education coursework…