To solicit students' views on teaching and learning in large classes, surveys were distributed to 143 students enrolled in an upper division general education and major course in communication theory in the fall of 1993. The survey consisted of 17 questions, 10 of which were closed-ended questions concerning demographics. The remaining seven were…

This paper uses a quality-assurance framework to unify the application of school-effectiveness and school-improvement knowledge to a school system. The paper proposes that effective school development is enhanced by the implementation of quality systems that recognize the stages of performance-development cycles. It discusses quality-assurance…

This paper presents findings of research that examined the effects of two recent educational reforms--restructuring to produce effective schools and mainstreaming students with disabilities into general classes. Specifically, the relationship between general- and special-education achievement to school-environment quality indicators in 56 southern…

In an effort to evaluate the occupational success of graduates and to determine how well academic programs prepare students for work, Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) regularly conducts surveys of employers of PVCC graduates. In 1993, surveys were sent to the employers of 47 graduates from the class of 1990-91 who had previously given…

The shift away from norm-referenced tests to authentic samples of child performance, such as writing and drawing samples, poses serious problems in organizing and analyzing assessments of child performance. This paper proposes a process utilizing the large-scale storage capacity of centralized mainframe computers and the flexibility and efficiency…

Past research has shown that prior knowledge has a main influence on the learning of students and is a better predictor of study success than other variables in distance education. It has also become clear than the use of assessment techniques as instruments for gathering information on study progress and for directing study guidance should be…

The articles in this annotated bibliography represent holdings of the Test Center in the area of assessment alternatives in mathematics. Presence on the list does not imply endorsement of the practices by the Test Center; rather, articles are made available to stimulate thinking and provide ideas. Some entries present informal assessments intended…

Education and communication researchers have not explored sufficiently teacher credibility or the classroom communication and experiences of teachers and professors of color, in particular, teachers and professors belonging to subordinate minority groups. As a result, there are gaps in the literature due to its incomplete status. Qualitative case…

This reference manual guides users in developing or amending school improvement plans for the 1993-96 Performance-Based Accountability Program (PBAP) of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The PBAP was established with the passage of the state's School Improvement and Accountability Act (1989). In addition to establishing a…

The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) organized a conference in May 1994 around the theme of assessment for better student learning. The chapters in this collection constitute a selection of the 32 conference presentations. All have been rewritten for this book, although Dary Erwin's chapter (chapter 3) was especially written…

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a nationwide, nonprofit organization of the 57 public officials who head departments of public education in the United States, 5 U.S. extra-state jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense Dependents Schools. States are currently at various stages in developing and…

This paper focuses on the development of the school-review process as it has evolved in the New South Wales (NSW), Australia, Department of School Education. The paper describes the background and context of the NSW public school system, which has undergone devolved management structures, rapid societal changes, and professional collaboration. The…

For the past 13 years, the Verde Valley Campus of Yavapai College, in Arizona, has used the same system to evaluate part-time faculty in an effort to both maintain quality control and provide feedback to part-time faculty and address their concerns. The system utilizes two instruments to gather evaluative data. The first is used to determine…

The second annual Affiliates' meeting of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching brought together 200 people to examine authentic teaching and assessment practices and policies. Nine presentations from the meeting are compiled in this document, illustrating different approaches to developing alternative assessment…

Three methods of equating performance assessments are compared. Equipercentile equating, item response theory (IRT) partial credit model, and IRT graded response model methods were applied to the same data using an anchor test design. Comparisons are based primarily on the resulting raw score-to-raw score tables and the effects these tables have…