Concerns over equity, access, and fairness of placement testing have resulted in state regulations requiring validity evidence of the placement test with respect to a criterion variable, such as final course grades. A study was conducted to assess the validity of placement tests used to place students in pre-collegiate and college-level English…

This paper is the report of a year-long study of a mathematics teacher's attempts to document her observations of students. One goal of the project is to determine whether it is feasible for a teacher to keep a record of informal assessments such as observations and interviews. Another goal is to determine how useful such information could be to…

Over the past decade, faculty in the Humanities department at Raritan Valley Community College, in New Jersey, have developed two interdisciplinary, team-taught courses organized on a thematic basis. To determine student and faculty perceptions of these courses, the college distributed questionnaires to students in one of the courses, conducted…

While teachers traditionally have been evaluated by school administrators, the call for multiple and variable lines of evidence in teacher evaluation has had many proponents. To evaluate the use of multiple judges, teacher ratings from four judges using a common evaluation instrument were compared for 93 teachers from grades three and above.…

Most freshman composition instructors have to field student inquiries and complaints about grades. Research and thought about alternative methods of evaluation can help lessen this burden. Grading holistically, team and partner grading, and portfolio grading are all effective methods. Often the instructor's evaluation "language" can…

While it is generally accepted that people working in groups can accomplish more than people working individually, it is equally accepted that parasites will attempt to feed on the other group members. Group work has been called by several names--group learning, cooperative learning, collaborative learning--all of which carry slightly different…

This book provides a guide for early childhood educators in implementing and using portfolio assessment to measure children's learning. Chapter 1 focuses on, "How Young Children Learn." It explains that children are active learners who learn by doing things repeatedly, by making mistakes, and by being exposed to varying approaches,…

This report on the educational system of Cameroon contains information for university admissions officers and registrars in the United States on the credentials and other documentation that would be minimally required for student entry from Cameroon to specified levels of study in the United States. In Cameroon French and English languages share…

In 1993, the University of Melbourne's Institute of Education determined that School Experience and Professional Practice subjects would be graded according to the University's standard assessment scheme instead of a pass/fail scheme. To establish a framework for assessment, the Beginning Teacher Competencies from the National Project on the…

This book, originally published in 1969, presents a comprehensive analysis of the rationale, principles, and presuppositions that make contemporary universities what they are. It proposes that literature, art, and philosophy embody a promise of gratification that engenders a negative critique of the social and cultural status quo, and that the…

A study examined the outcomes of the No Pass/No Play Arizona Board of Education rule that requires pupils to pass all of their classes in order to participate in extracurricular activities. Student records of all 7th through 12th grade extracurricular activity participants in the Mesa Unified School District (Arizona) were reviewed. The data…

This document consists of papers that were presented at the 1991 and 1992 annual meetings of the Midwest Philosophy of Education Society. The book is divided into four sections. The first is composed of the society president's address at the 1992 meeting and a response to that address. The presidential address discussed chaos theory and the…

This study examined whether conditions affecting intellectual challenge and course difficulty experienced by students were associated with the severity of grading standards. A policy by a university academic unit that reduced the number of high grades awarded by one of its departments provided an opportunity to test a research-based prediction…

This book provides a set of principles and analytical methods that are based on research findings and are designed to be adapted to different assessment scenarios, thus enabling instructors to construct their own assessment methods. Part 1 covers the underlying principles of assessment, examining its purposes, assessment criteria, and the nature…

Compulsory national testing for children at ages 7, 11, 14, and 16 years is part of the British National Curriculum. This development contributes to the fact that the issue of assessment is of increasing interest to parents, teachers, administrators, and employers. This book attempts to explain how assessment systems work and the uses that can be…