A sample of 293 local district assessments used in the Nebraska STARS (School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System), 147 from 2004 district mathematics assessment portfolios and 146 from 2003 reading assessment portfolios, was scored with a rubric evaluating their quality. Scorers were Nebraska educators with background and training…

Mastery of content area reading in science and social studies is demonstrated through writing as well as reading. Integrating writing with reading enhances comprehension because the two are reciprocal processes. Therefore, teachers who implement a variety of writing strategies help students better understand content area texts. This article offers…

The assessment of writing ability is notoriously difficult. Different facets of the assessment seem to influence its outcome. Besides the writer's writing proficiency, the topic of the assignment, the features or traits scored (e.g., content or language use) and even the way in which these traits are scored (e.g., holistically or analytically)…

Second language (L2) reading comprehension assessment has long relied upon classical quantitative, product-oriented measurement techniques (i.e., multiple-choice and cloze) in both research and classroom assessment. As Bernhardt (1991) clearly demonstrated, these traditionally employed assessment methods are unable to capture the complex processes…

There is nothing more frustrating for a student than to receive a project assignment with little or no description of how it will be graded. The student completes the project and then the teacher picks a grade by some unseen checklist. For students, parents, school administrators, and a program advisory board, this method of student assessment…

A performance assessment consisting of 10 separate exercises was scored with a randomized scoring procedure. All responses to each exercise were rated once; in addition, a randomly selected subset of the responses to each exercise received an independent second rating. Each second rating was averaged with the corresponding first rating before the…

Enhancing critical thinking skills for undergraduate students is important across the curriculum and between disciplines. We report on a method of improving critical thinking skills, which was studied through an Ethics and Science First-Year Seminar course. We used full cycle assessment over a three-year period to assess students' development and…

The work students create should help them develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed in the adult world. In this article, the authors identify adult roles essential for young people to develop and outline ways teachers can use curriculum standards to create assignments and assessments that prepare youths for those adult roles in society.…

Schools that encourage teachers to do excellent work, as Boston Arts Academy (BAA) does, are "professional learning communities." A professional learning community exists when the entire faculty and staff, including the administration, work together towards a shared set of standards and assessments that are known to everyone, including…

This study extends the debate concerning the mathematical skills deficit of bioscience undergraduates towards a deeper understanding of their mathematics learning, since only through the latter can appropriate and effective explicit teaching be implemented. Three hundred and twenty-six first-year bioscience undergraduates, from three pre- and four…

This study explored the use of case-based pedagogy to promote preservice teachers' problem-solving proficiency. Students in a web-supported course called CaseNEX learned to use a problem-solving approach when analyzing multimedia case studies. Their performance was compared with students in two groups who had no exposure to case methods--other…

On-line performance assessment was developed to maximize the usefulness of performance assessment and to minimize the time and labor costs incurred. This paper reports on the development of an on-line performance assessment instrument, focusing on the establishment and validation of the scoring rubric and its implementation in the Rasch model, the…

The first four chapters of this report primarily provide an extensive, critical review of the literature with regard to selected aspects of the criterion-referenced and mastery testing fields. Major topics treated include: (a) definitions, distinctions, and background, (b) the relevance of classical test theory, (c) validity and procedures for…

This brief review explains some alternate scoring procedures to the classical method of summing correct responses. The novel procedures attempt in some way to retrieve and use even the information in the wrong responses. (Author)

This study compares various item option scoring methods with respect to coefficient alpha and a concurrent validity coefficient. The scoring methods under consideration were: (1) formula scoring, (2) a priori scoring, (3) empirical scoring with an internal criterion, and (4) two modifications of formula scoring. The study indicates a clear…