This instructional module from the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) explains how to design assessments for written reports, develop performance criteria and communicate them to students, monitor progress, and assess the outcome. Learning how to give students a role in assessment adds a dimension to their responsibilities. (SLD)

Describes a study to diagnose grade 8 (n=185) and grade 10 (n=170) Israeli students' difficulties in causal thinking while studying biology. The two main difficulties found are (1) inability to organize events according to their correct temporal sequence and (2) inability to identify an event that had been caused by another event. (MDH)

Explores the "translation-recognition" task, using two experiments, one for adult Dutch learners of English and the second for people from the same population. Results suggest that translation recognition and translation production respond to the same manipulations, except when cognates and noncognates are focused on separately. (23…

Describes the development of the Early Adolescent version of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (EA-HOME) Inventory. Presents information on its usefulness with African Americans, Chinese Americans, European Americans, Mexican Americans, and Dominican Americans. Notes findings indicating high interobserver agreement, with…

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a team-referent attribution scale. Conducted over three studies, Study 1 modified items from McAuley, Duncan, and Russell's (1992) Causal Dimension Scale II by rewording items to reflect team attributions and adding one item per factor. This led to the development of a 16-item scale (Causal…

This article discusses some of the challenges that researchers working in the fields of bilingualism and second-language acquisition (SLA) and in the field of language testing face in developing comparable and culturally and cognitively appropriate data collection and language assessment tools for bilingual children from rural minority-language…

This study describes the development of the Staff Implementation Observation Form, an instrument to assess staff competence delivering an intervention to youth in group home care with behavioral or emotional disorders. This instrument assesses staff skill at implementing the key treatment components, including building relationships with youth,…

Students at the undergraduate level usually tend to view research methods courses negatively. However, an understanding of these attitudes is necessary to help instructors facilitate the learning of research for their students, by enabling them to create more positive attitudes toward such courses. The aim of this study is to describe the…

Constructivist Internet-based learning environments are advocated by contemporary educators, but few studies investigated students' preferences toward the environments for learning a specific school subject such as science. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to explore students' preferences toward constructivist…

This article describes the development and use of a norm-referenced instrument called the Healthy School Indicator Tool (HSIT) that was designed to assist educational professionals monitor their progress in addressing critical health issues in schools. Factor analyses of two administrations of the survey indicated a stable factor structure. In…

To assess students' business writing abilities upon entry into the business program and exit from the capstone course, a multitiered assessment package was developed that measures students' achievement of specific learning outcomes and provides "value-added" scores. The online segment of the test measures five competencies across three process…

The aim of this study is to explore the possibility of creating positive washback by focusing on factors in the background of the test development process and anticipating the conditions most likely to lead to positive wash-back. The article reports on a multiphase empirical study investigating the washback effects of a needs-based test of spoken…

Purpose: The purpose was to investigate higher education quality because there are links between the main society and university graduates and the university. Methodology: This research sought aspects of the teaching quality of the Faculty that could be improved. The spheres were: improvement in qualifications of the teachers; finding ways to…

Food mishandling is thought to be more acute among young adults; yet little is known about why they may engage in risky food handling behaviors. The purpose of this study was to create valid, reliable instruments for assessing key food safety psychosocial measures. Development of the measures began by examining published studies and behavior…

Little is known about the food safety knowledge of young adults. In addition, few knowledge questionnaires and no comprehensive, criterion-referenced measure that assesses the full range of food safety knowledge could be identified. Without appropriate, valid, and reliable measures and baseline data, it is difficult to develop and implement…