The Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) is a group of people interested in small college computing issues. It is a blend of people from all over the country who use computers in their teaching, academic support, and administrative support functions. ASCUE has a strong tradition of bringing its members together to pool their…

A significant aspect of recent reform efforts is a strong move to change assessment techniques. When the focus of the reform is on changing teachers' practices of assessment and evaluation of students, the issue of how they incorporate the mechanisms of assigning grades into their teaching becomes important. The purpose of this study was to…

The objective of this study was to determine the degree to which recommendations for passing scores, calculated on the basis of a traditional standard-setting methodology, might be affected by the mode (paper versus computer-screen prints) in which test items were presented to standard setting panelists. Results were based on the judgments of 31…

A study described and assessed a working experiential learning model used since 1976 as an adjunct to the basic speech communication course at the University College of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. In addition to class attendance, students in the basic course meet in a communication laboratory for one hour per week. The overall functioning of…

Teachers often act more like artists, in the sense that they tend to jump back and forth between new trends in pedagogy and theory. Meanwhile, the public, concerned that student evaluation as manifested in grading procedures rests on shaky ground, are losing faith in the credibility of their children's teachers. One way for teachers of all…

More attention is currently being paid to the distractors of a multiple-choice test item (Thissen, Steinberg, and Fitzpatrick, 1989). A systematic relationship exists between the keyed response and distractors in multiple-choice items (Levine and Drasgow, 1983). New scoring methods have been introduced, computer programs developed, and research…

Anecdotal testimony indicates that grade deflation is encouraged in many colleges and universities, especially in freshman writing courses. As a result, grading down has become a point of pride for some writing instructors. Instead of earning reputations as good, caring, committed teachers whose students do well because the teachers have worked…

Sample student learning contracts and job (task) cards, which have been used successfully with junior high school students, are collected in this document. The sample contracts in the areas of reading, writing, and language arts show a variety of formats and point systems for earning grades. The job cards, which can be placed in a learning…

A total of 47 twelfth grade students from five different English classes and the six teachers in the English department at a secondary school in Canada took part in a study to determine what effects traditional grade-based writing evaluation procedures had upon the process of writing. There were three distinct yet related components to the…

The tendency to read for errors is an occupational hazard for writing teachers, but there is something profoundly wrong in measuring progress by measuring the reduction of errors. To begin breaking this habit, teachers must first recognize the fundamental hypocrisy in making correction markings that are at odds with the intended message (i.e.,…

The purpose of this study is to examine an option-weighting method as it affects pass-fail decisions in formative and summative evaluation of student achievement for instructional units, certification, advancement, licensure, admissions, placement, and selection. A database was constructed using high school achievement test data where a…

A brief comparison of secondary school examination methods in England and the Federal Republic of Germany is made. The Abitur, or examination for the leaving certificate of the German grammar school, is explained, and an Abitur and its results at the German School, the Hague, 1974, are described. (RM)

Cooperative learning as a promising approach for higher education is discussed in terms of its relation to active learning, cognitive processing, and personalizing principles and concepts. Preliminary data from experimental classes demonstrated little advantage for a group improvement incentive. While students in the bottom third of these classes…

Procedures used by 55 faculty in the evaluation of students in various academic areas in Indiana University were studied. The majority of respondents taught undergraduates, were male, and were experienced, full-time faculty. Business faculty used primarily essay tests and research papers, while physical science faculty used mostly objective tests,…