The teaching performance expectations and assignments that preservice art teachers currently address in field experiences and in their coursework are designed to help them meet the expectations of being a quality art educator in the 21st century. These assignments may be very different from the assignments that art educators had in their…

In this article, we discuss the potential of a critical approach to standardized tests and their results. In particular, we explore and discuss this potential not only for the assessment of students' mathematical competence, but also for teachers' professional development. We identify and describe two kinds of potential: the Informational…

International large-scale student assessments (ILSAs) in education represent a valuable source of information for policy-makers, not only on student achievements, but also on their relationship with different contextual factors. The results are partly described in the official studies' reports; more can be derived from the publicly released data…

Using a survey of college of business deans, the authors investigate perceptions of published rankings of academic programs. Published rankings have become quite prominent, and anecdotal evidence suggests great efforts are being undertaken to be included in rankings or enhance rankings. The authors conducted a survey of business school deans to…

This article describes a language arts teacher's two-tiered way of using assessment data, which uses both standardized assessment data and teacher-created "skills" inventories. Standardized test data may help see where a learner performed in a previous year on items that often do not line up too well with future content. Standardized…

The first article in this series traces the initial development of the concept of evaluation use. As a field, evaluation has always paid attention to the potential for use, both in decision-making and in changing people's thinking. The broad history of the field as we know it today stemmed from two streams: one focused on tests and measurement,…

Increased demand for accountability has forced Extension educators to evaluate their programs and document program impacts. Due to this situation, some Extension educators may view evaluation simply as the task, imposed on them by administrators, of collecting outcome and impact data for accountability. They do not perceive evaluation as a useful…

The relationship between theory and practice, or between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge, is not a simple one, and rarely is it the case that theory is "applied" to practice. This paper aims to clarify the relationship by briefly discussing the nature of practical problems and the role that theoretical knowledge plays in…

Research on the evaluation of large-scale public-sector reforms is rare. This article sets out to fill that gap in the evaluation literature and argues that it is of vital importance since the impact of such reforms is considerable and they change the context in which evaluations of other and more delimited policy areas take place. In our…

The assessment movement that has emerged on American college campuses over the last twenty years emphasizes the need to carefully articulate the particular outcomes colleges seek for students, and it demands that faculty and administrators provide evidence of their students' success with respect to these outcomes. It also requires that this…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) University of North Carolina at Charlotte: Using the EIA [Excellence in Assessment] Application as a Catalyst for Intentional Improvement (Christine Robinson and associates); (2) Editor's Notes (Stephen P. Hundley); (3) Northern Arizona University's Journey to…

The data team intervention was designed to support Dutch secondary schools in using data while developing a solution to an educational problem. A data team can build school-wide capacity for data use through knowledge sharing among data team members, and knowledge brokerage between the team and other colleagues. The goal of this mixed-methods…

By using equity theory through a social justice lens, the authors intend to highlight how data are currently being used to solve the "what" and not the "why" as it relates to achievement gaps for marginalized students in urban settings. School practitioners have been utilizing quantitative data, such as district and state…

The link between health and learning is clear: healthy, active and well-nourished children are more likely to attend school, arrive ready to learn and stay engaged in class. Yet far too many students spend their days in schools that do not offer them adequate clean air and water, nutritious food, physical activity and the support of a school…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to gain insights and understandings of high school teachers' perceptions and use of formative assessment to enhance their planning, individualization of instruction, and adjustment of course content to improve student learning. The study was conducted over two years in a midwestern high school of…