This paper describes how one university professor discovered a gap between her explanation of a class assignment (analyzing a content textbook) and students' comprehension of the assignment. After attending a workshop, she revised all assignments for the content reading course and designed a grading rubric for each assignment. The assignment…

This document includes a booklet and presentation guide. The booklet contains the anchor papers used to score the 2001 Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) in writing, grade 7. Anchor papers are concrete examples that illustrate the intent of the scoring guides. The papers in the booklet exemplify the full range of score points…

Elementary education teacher candidates (n=62) proposed four criteria they used to identify a best lesson plan developed and taught for posting to their electronic portfolio. Criteria include a lesson that students enjoyed, learned from, actively participated in, and were involved in conducting research. The two criteria shared by all teacher…

Knowledge mapping is expected to measure deep conceptual understanding and allow students to characterize relationships among concepts in a domain visually. This research examined the validity of knowledge mapping as an assessment tool in science. The approach to investigating this validity was three-pronged. First, a model was outlined for the…

This study examined approaches to action research held by science, education, and mathematics faculty and how they convert ideas to action research proposals and plan to gather and analyze their research data. The study also described some of the research outcomes of successful action research projects. Rubrics were used on a diverse set of…

In the United States, standardized educational tests have been used for assessment purposes in grades K through 12 almost since the inception of the testing movement in the early 1900s. Because test-based assessment can have wide-ranging positive or negative effects on K-12 students, the test user must ensure that the tests used for assessment…

This book is intended as a practical guide to implementing a standards-based curriculum, developing performance tasks, teaching to those tasks, and using performance assessments. The chapters are: (1) "Establishing the Foundations"; (2) "Understanding the Achievement Cycle"; (3) "Focusing on Authentic Learning"; (4) "Building on a Standards-Based…

Two new methods for improving the measurement precision of a general test factor are proposed and evaluated. One new method provides a multidimensional item response theory estimate obtained from conventional administrations of multiple-choice test items that span general and nuisance dimensions. The other method chooses items adaptively to…

Item mappings are widely used in educational assessment for applications such as test administration (through test form assembly and computer assisted testing) and for criterion-referenced (CR) interpretation of test scores or scale anchoring. Item mappings are also used to construct ordered item booklets in the CTB/McGraw Hill Bookmark standard…

By noting that a Rasch or two parameter logistic (2PL) item belongs to the exponential family of random variables and that the probability density function (pdf) of the correct response (X=1) and the incorrect response (X=0) are symmetric with respect to the vertical line at the item location, it is shown that the conjugate prior for ability is…

The purpose of the Idaho Direct Mathematics Assessment (DMA) is to measure Idaho students' mathematical problem-solving skills, including their ability to apply basic skills to problem-solving situations as stated in the Idaho Achievement Standards document. Problem solving is valued as an essential tool for success in a complex, modern world. The…

A new method is proposed to set multiple standards in performance tests. The method combines three sources of information coming from three different data collections. The first is an empirical definition of mastery of an item; the second consists of parameter estimates of the items in an Item Response Theory (IRT) model, and the third source is a…

This issue of NISE Brief discusses the weakness of the most commonly used educational outcome indicators--average and median test scores and proficiency-level indicators--and the advantages of value-added indicators. It offers a critique of the average test score as a measure of school and program performance as an example based on national data.…

A brief note presenting algebraically equivalent formulas for the variances of three error types. (Author)

Purpose of this study was to examine the effect of using separate, machine scorable answer sheets on the number of marking errors made by third-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students. (Authors)