The main purpose of this paper is to analyse a specific educational policy in a national context: INICIA (In Spanish: Start) in Chile. Enacted in 2008, this policy evaluates beginning teachers at the national level before they start their professional careers in schools. The INICIA has been categorised as a certification policy to measure what…

The promotion of performance measurement and international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) is often explained in terms of the rise and expansion of the neoliberal thought collective; in other words, testing constitutes a core component of neoliberal education reform. A less well-known feature of the neoliberal regime is its numerous precursors and…

People tend to perceive and assess their own creativity in a positive, yet not always accurate, way. This study explores whether differences in self-ratings of the creative self-concept (creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity) are related to the sequence in which self-report measures are applied: the order effect. A randomly chosen…

We compared students' performance on a paper-based test (PBT) and three computer-based tests (CBTs). The three computer-based tests used different test navigation and answer selection features, allowing us to examine how these features affect student performance. The study sample consisted of 9,698 fourth through twelfth grade students from across…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy, and the standardized assessments that test students on these standards, focus on students' ability to navigate online text and require students to comprehend, analyze, and make inferences about complex texts in both print and digital format. While the ability to read digital text with a high…

Most of the more serious mistakes we make in our second or third languages are not linked to grammar, but to pragmatics (Félix-Brasdefer, 2008; Kasper & Rose, 1999; Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985; Rose & Kasper, 2001). While language textbooks are often focused on grammar content distributed throughout a communicative syllabus (Lázaro…

The Performance Expectations described in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) pose significant challenges for assessment design. Multiple models of assessments, including paper-and-pencil and hands-on based performance assessments, can be utilized to assess student competency while applying scientific and engineering practices, in the…

As a condition of receiving federal funds, the Every Student Succeeds Act requires state education agencies to implement statewide assessments in mathematics and English language arts every year in third through eighth grade and once in ninth through 12th grade. The federal law also requires a science assessment once in each of three grade spans:…

Historically, special populations of students have had accelerated challenges during their pursuit for education (Russell, Toomey, Ryan, & Diaz, 2014). These accelerated challenges have included, communication barriers due to cultural differences, receiving harsher punishments than other students, and feeling out of place (Russell et al.,…

The article is devoted to the issue of learning from the cognitive perspective. As life-long learning is an integral part of our modern life, the authors were attracted by the phenomenon when even young people demonstrate cognitive "resistance" to learning. This particular study is focused on cognitive destructions as challenges to…

Some schools use results from the MAP® Growth™ interim assessments from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA®) in a number of high-stakes ways. These include as a component of their teacher evaluation systems; to determine whether a student advances to the next grade; or as an indicator for student readiness for certain programs or…

Substantial progress has been made toward applying technology enhanced conversation-based assessments (CBAs) to measure the English-language proficiency of English learners (ELs). CBAs are conversation-based systems that use conversations among computer-animated agents and a test taker. We expanded the design and capability of prior…

Although most international students arrive with required language qualifications, many struggle with the linguistic demands of their programmes. This study explored whether the test-preparation industry undermines the qualifications with which students arrive. English proficiency of 153 Chinese student in the UK was tested on the Duolingo English…

English is required as the official working language for oceangoing seafarers across the world. In China, much time and effort has been dedicated to improving maritime students' Maritime English (ME). However, low English proficiency is still one of the main barriers for Chinese seafarers to compete in the international maritime labor market.…

The study focuses on the process of assessing (a micro-skill) goal attainment in EFL pronunciation course via measures which can foster different students' attitudes and self-perceptions. Standard (pen-and-paper) tests offer immediate evidence of success but they put heavy demands on students' cognitive, performance and stress-controlling skills.…