This case study reports on the use of Web-based research portfolios in an information literacy course. It offers a model for teaching research skills in a structured and incremental way that can promote student centered learning and facilitate authentic assessment.

Authentic assessment is a growing alternative to conventional testing. This research-to-practice article describes a framework for implementing authentic assessment. The R-E-A-L framework shows how roles, equipment, assessment tools, and location can be incorporated into early childhood practices.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of classroom performance assessment on the EFL students' basic and inferential reading skills. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was employed in the study. The subjects of the study consisted of 64 first-year secondary school students in Menouf Secondary School for Boys at Menoufya…

This document is one of eight reports prepared to support the development of a new learning system, a development effort that is the first step in a major initiative undertaken by the Stupski Foundation. This report synthesizes recent research and theoretical literature on using best practices related to formative assessment to support urban…

A key component to the new wave of performance-based pay initiatives is the use of student achievement data to evaluate teacher performance. As greater amounts of student achievement data are being collected, researchers have been developing and applying innovative statistical and econometric models to longitudinal data to develop measures of an…

This study investigated the effects of collaborative group work skills training on pupil attainment in science. Twenty-four experimental classes were drawn from schools in rural and urban settings. Pupils in experimental classrooms engaged in general group work skills training and two structured group work activities in science. Attainment was…

Within the context of a mathematics reform effort to implement algebra in elementary schools, there is a pressure to provide results in the form of student achievement scores. However, widely-used measures of student achievement may be unrelated to the ideas and instructional practices encouraged by the reform effort. The inappropriate use of…

ExplaNet is a web-based, anonymous, asynchronous explanation-sharing network. Instructors post questions to the network and students submit explanatory answers. Students then view and rank the explanations submitted by their peers before optionally resubmitting a final and revised answer. Three classroom evaluations of ExplaNet showed that by…

The purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which indicators on the language and literacy and mathematical thinking domains of a curriculum-embedded performance assessment functioned differently for urban, African American and White male students. A sample of 852 first-grade male students in a large urban school district, located in…

One of the great myths of education, faithfully subscribed to for many years by legislators, board members, and educators, is that colleges and universities turn out teachers and administrators as finished products guaranteed to work satisfactorily in any school district. Supporters of performance evaluation are disbelievers. They regard formal…

A hypothetical case study provides examples of the inter-rater reliability issues involved in complex performance assessment, focusing on the Baldrige model. A hypothetical team of five evaluators was asked to rate a Baldrige model performance assessment along the seven defined criteria or performance dimensions that comprise the Baldrige model…

Even in today's mathematics classroom, where teachers often focus primarily on mastery of underlying concepts, students struggle to commit the multiplication table to memory. Facility in multiplication involves both an understanding of the concepts and memorization of the facts. Successful memorization of the one hundred basic multiplication facts…

This report presents the final recommendations of the Performance Indicator Advisory Committee to the Illinois Board of Higher Education with regard to statewide and common institutional indicators that can be used to assess progress toward meeting the goals of "The Illinois Commitment" for higher education. Also addressed are the…

Assessment of clinical performance is intended to make generalizations about a physicians competence. Performance assessments involve three interacting components: the candidate, the cases, and the raters. Confidence in generalizations depends on reliability of the measurements and whether the cases represent the competence domains of interest.…

An analysis was made of the cognitive processes that support the judgments made in standard setting activities. These processes were conceived as having two components: forming the domain needed to pass the test and identifying the criterion level of performance to pass the test. In fact, these processes are interactive, and were separated for the…