In recent years, there has been increased attention regarding systems-level implementation to support the sustained use of evidence-based interventions and supports in authentic early childhood settings. With this comes a need to accurately measure implementation fidelity of the critical features within a framework as well as individual practices.…

Increasing children's access to media has attached greater significance to media literacy education, the content and methods of which have changed with media development. This study aimed to investigate the effects of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) method on media literacy competencies in elementary students. To this end, 95 female sixth-grade…

School teams regularly meet to review academic and social problems of individual students, groups of students, or their school in general. While the need for problem solving and recommendations for how to do it are widely documented, there is very limited evidence reflecting the extent to which teams effectively engage in a systematic or effective…

Although there is a strong legislative base and perceived efficacy for multidisciplinary team decision making, limited evidence supports its effectiveness or consistency of implementation in practice. In recent research, we used the Decision Observation, Recording, and Analysis (DORA) tool to document activities and adult behaviors during positive…

The first step in the Validity and Reliability Study summarizes the history and purpose of California's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), reviews findings from other QRIS evaluation studies, and describes the approach to validating the system in California. The majority of this report focuses on providing context for the California…

The Australian Professional Teaching Standards require pre-service teachers to complete a minimum number of days of professional experience in order to graduate. Problems can arise, however, when the evaluation of their professional experience against the Standards shifts from the providers of teacher education programmes to school-based…

This paper reviews the literature about peer and self-assessment in university courses from the point of view of their use, and the suitability of their use, in the first year of university study. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part argues that although first-year students are involved in many of the studies that report on the…

The SAS Educational Value-Added Assessment System (SAS[R] EVAAS[R]) is the most widely used value-added system in the country. It is also self-proclaimed as "the most robust and reliable" system available, with its greatest benefit to help educators improve their teaching practices. This study critically examined the effects of SAS[R] EVAAS[R] as…

Researchers have raised a number of questions about whether student achievement data can be used fairly or accurately for purposes of teacher evaluation. Others have noted that achievement data alone cannot provide teachers with the information they need to improve their practice. Recognizing these limitations, the federal government and many…

Authentic assessment is a growing alternative to conventional testing. This research-to-practice article describes a framework for implementing authentic assessment. The R-E-A-L framework shows how roles, equipment, assessment tools, and location can be incorporated into early childhood practices.

Assessment for learning involves the frequent, continual use of both formal and informal classroom assessments. It can be as simple as requiring students to respond to a lesson-embedded, one-item quiz as a way of gauging student understanding of what is being taught. Ideally, this innovative approach to classroom assessment is based on a careful…

The 1992-93 school year saw the second statewide implementation of the Vermont portfolio-assessment program, and RAND continued its ongoing evaluation of the program's implementation, effects, and data quality. While the first year's study found evidence of the impact of the assessment program and low reliability of portfolio scoring, this year's…

Two separate sets of minimum standards designed to guide the evaluation of bilingual projects are proposed. The first set relates to the process in which the evaluation activities are conducted. They include: validity of assessment procedures, validity and reliability of evaluation instruments, representativeness of findings, use of procedures for…

Measuring attainment of the program's objectives and describing the program's implementation are listed as two of the evaluator's major responsibilities. The description should include an explanation of the context in which the program was initiated, as well as the component materials and activities. This booklet has three purposes: (1) suggesting…

This symposium on measurement and research tools consists of three presentations. "An Examination of the Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS)" (Albert Wiswell et al.) explores MIDAS's psychometric saliency. Findings indicates this instrument represents an incomplete attempt to develop a valid assessment of…