Describes the ECOSET project, developed by the European Community to collect data on the current state of formative and summative evaluation activities regarding courseware used within the classroom in Europe. Evaluation instruments and evaluation techniques are described, and their cultural embeddedness and curricular dependencies are discussed.…

Reviews types of evaluation that may be applied to school-linked services; and discusses the needs for a range of evaluative strategies for program providers, policymakers, and funders. For some programs evaluation will be primarily descriptive, whereas for others a carefully designed outcome evaluation will be possible. (SLD)

Argues that evaluation and assessment are essential to both the practical and conceptual aspects of art education. Outlines criteria and guidelines for developing different evaluation methods. Proposes a process model for evaluating students' work. Maintains that all students will enhance their learning if they negotiate the criteria and purposes…

The University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) uses self-study and peer review to enhance its required, periodic external quality assessments. Lessons learned include these: change must be tailored to the discipline; mutual trust, respect, understanding of the principles, and involvement among all parties is crucial to success; and management…

A recent effort to bring the Total Quality Management approach into an upper-division economics course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is described, focusing on three major elements: (1) proficiency-based customer focus, (2) student involvement in team research projects, and (3) continuous improvement through ongoing student evaluation of…

Over the past quarter-century, evaluation researchers have recognized the importance of documenting implementation practices of programs as they are transferred from controlled to real-world settings. As programs become widely disseminated in the general population, there is a tendency for practitioners to alter programs in a manner more conducive…

Current approaches to oral assessment of English in English secondary schools tend to concentrate more on "confidence" and "participation" than on the quality of children's thinking. This undermines the rich possibilities in classroom talk for cognitive development. Behavioural assessment approaches deny the essentially…

In response to the challenges of new state-mandated requirements for teacher credentialing, a team of university faculty and school district representatives worked in a collaborative project to support beginning teachers. The outcome of the collaborative is an innovative program that provides support and formative assessment of teachers during…

This study evolved as an instructor took over a course that recently had been converted to a web-based course. While navigating the web-based course the instructor and students recognised several issues and concerns (instructional alignment, lack of interactivity, poorly designed test questions and confusing instructions for assignments). Study…

The aim of this study was to examine the fidelity and completeness of the implementation of a school-based healthful diet promotion programme called "Krachtvoer" (we use the Dutch title of the programme throughout this article. A possible translation is Power Food, but this does not reflect the play on words in the Dutch title), aimed at…

This project developed as a result of some inconclusive data from an investigation of whether a relationship existed between the use of formative assessment opportunities and performance, as measured by final grade. We were expecting to show our colleagues and students that use of formative assessment resources had the potential to improve…

There is a supranational tendency in educational governance towards a "management by projects" policy, which substitutes democratic procedures and norm-based control in the materialisation of educational justice. The organisational level becomes crucial for the management of education and the pressure to conceive education as a…

In this paper we present the Report Manager of our Web-based tutoring system for German--an interface to a persistent learner report that students can inspect and manipulate. The learner report collects and retains information on the learner's progress and performance that is saved between visits. It also provides access to a journaling system…

In software engineering education, large projects are widely recognized as a useful way of exposing students to the real-world difficulties of team software development. But large projects are difficult to put into practice. First, educators rarely have additional time to manage software projects. Second, classrooms have inherent limitations that…

The development of critical thinking skills is a fundamental educational objective and is regarded as an essential component of the general education of college students. To further this objective, this study investigates instructional strategies for improving the thinking skills of college students engaged in collaborative learning endeavors.…