We report on a longitudinal study designed to assess possible sex differences in math achievement, math ability, and math-related tasks during the primary school age years. Participants included over 200 children from one public school district. Annual assessments included measures of math ability, math calculation achievement scores, rapid naming…

In this investigation I focused on a process of activities of a particular group of teachers and learners. Basic skills in mastering mathematical concepts were addressed. The focus was on concept formation in the geometry classroom. The methodology involved an educational case study as a form of inquiry to investigate spatial sense. Evidence was…

This paper will describe the Teaching and Learning Informational Technology Process (TLITP). Before present day strategies, teaching and learning relied on transformations based on quantification to measure performance. The process will be a non-linear three construct of teacher, student and community. Emphasizing old practices now is the…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) From No Child Left Behind to Every Child a Graduate: Members of Congress and Staff Vow that High Schools Will Be…

Year after year, the goal of educators, parents, and concerned citizens throughout Alabama is to provide this state's children with the highest level of quality education possible. The future of Alabama's businesses, industries, commerce, labor force, arts, humanities, and countless other areas are determined by the education that is provided to…

The articles in this bibliography represent holdings to date in the area of assessment alternatives in mathematics. The annotated articles are intended mainly to stimulate thinking and provide ideas. Some of the entries are formal assessments and are intended mainly for the classroom. Other articles discuss performance based assessment and other…

A new free-response item type for mathematics tests is described. The item type, referred to as the Student-Produced Response (SPR), was first introduced into the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in 1993 and into the Scholastic Aptitude Test in 1994. Students solve a problem and record the answer by…

A teacher describes how he changed the way his high school students learned mathematics, using cooperative learning methodology and focusing on oral, as opposed to written, examinations and on group effort as opposed to individual effort. As the students' learning changed, the teacher was faced with the new problem of assessing the new type of…

A practice test has been prepared to give students experience with test items that are similar to those on the Ohio Ninth-grade Proficiency Tests. The practice test consists of one writing prompt, 20 reading questions, 20 mathematics questions, 25 citizenship questions, and 20 science questions. This manual contains instructions to the teacher, as…

The Cognitive Science Laboratory of the University of Southern California has conducted a series of studies on the experimental effects of motivation on a low-stakes (to the student) standardized test. This report summarizes these studies and their results. The test in question is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A series of…

The pre-algebra lexicon is a set of classroom exercises designed to teach the technical words and phrases of pre-algebra mathematics, and includes the terms most commonly found in related mathematics courses. The lexicon has three parts, each with its own introduction. The first introduces vocabulary items in three groups forming a learning…

Although the standard-setting method of W. H. Angoff (1971) has broad-based support in the research literature, inconsistencies in the resulting standards do occur. Sources of these inconsistencies are examined in a study of judges, competencies (items), rounds (replications), and the interactions among them. A modified Angoff approach was used to…

Commemorating the work of Anne Cleary, the author considers the need for research on assessment in the practice context, provides an example of research in context, and proposes general areas of development for assessment research in the context of practice. Research has shown that effects of testing programs on practice are often not those that…

This book is a guide to the development and use of performance tasks and rubrics in the high school mathematics classroom. It contains a rationale for, and a discussion of strengths and limitations of, performance tasks to assess student achievement and progress in mathematics. A field-tested process is offered for developing performance tasks and…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a congressionally mandated survey of educational achievement of American students in a variety of curriculum areas and of changes in that achievement over time. The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) has established new standards for reporting the results that determined three…