In 1987, Seattle Central Community College (SCCC), in Washington, began a 5-year project to gather evidence on SCCC's success in imparting knowledge, skills, and values to its students. This report represents a compilation of major assessment activities and provides brief descriptions of 10 studies on outcomes grouped by specific dimensions of…

This guide provides precise, detailed descriptions of empirically validated best practices to promote learning in infants and young children with disabilities. It is designed to be a practical and comprehensive, easy-to-read introductory methods text that addresses the fundamental issues associated with implementing the legislative mandates of the…

This article discusses the meaning of evaluation for teachers and students, reasons for evaluating students, and evaluative methods teachers might use. First, three principles of evaluation are presented: students should know the criteria for judging good and bad work; every student should have an opportunity to succeed at one type of evaluation;…

The construction and validation of a tutor evaluation questionnaire are described. The importance of the tutor in problem-based learning requires assessment of staff conducting this role. After a pilot study in 1990-91 with 100 students and 150 tutors who identified important tutor skills, a questionnaire was prepared. This questionnaire was…

At one of a series of hearings on H.R. 6, the Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments of 1993, several experts discussed issues related to national assessment, assessment in Chapter 1, and state efforts to develop new forms of assessment. Eleanor Chelimsky, Assistant Comptroller General for Program Evaluation and Methodology of the General…

This paper makes a case for the development of several indirect indicators of national progress in reaching the collegiate attainment objective of the National Education Goals of 1990. These indicators would be developed concurrently with a proposed performance-based assessment to be administered to a national sample of graduating college seniors.…

The role and influence of mandated testing in educational reform are reviewed. Mandated testing refers to large-scale (districtwide or statewide) multiple-choice testing programs used for policy purposes of evaluation and accountability, which includes nationally normed standardized achievement tests and tests custom-developed to reflect state and…

The utility of the proposed Program Evaluation Standards to educational practitioners, and the adequacy of some of the standards in addressing issues in evaluation in culturally and linguistically educational environments are discussed, drawing on the author's experience as Director of the Evaluation Assistance Center East in Arlington (Virginia).…

The National Academy of Education (NAE) Panel has drawn two major conclusions in its evaluation of the National Assessment Governing Board's (NAGB) efforts to set achievement levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). They are that the Angoff procedure is fundamentally flawed for the setting of achievement levels, and that…

Industrial and organizational psychologists for the Department of Defense have been working for the past 10 years to develop high fidelity measures of job performance for use in validating job selection procedures and standards. Information on developing and scoring performance exercises in the Job Performance Measurement (JPM) Project is…

Compensatory education describes the special programs and services provided to students who are not succeeding in school and who do not qualify for special education. Educators define these students as "at risk"--at risk of school failure and a difficult transition to productive adult life. A recent study of compensatory education by the…

Despite complaints from undergraduate students concerning language and pedagogical skills of international teaching assistants (ITAs), institutions of higher education continue to appoint ITAs to teach. Legislative mandates have appeared to assess and improve language and pedagogical skills of ITAs, and the academies have likewise responded with…

This digest summarizes a longer document with the same title that discusses the problem of using, training, and assessing international teaching assistants (ITAs) in undergraduate education. Legislative mandates have appeared to assess and improve language and pedagogical skills of ITAs, and academies have likewise responded with workshops and…

The periodic review and development of public library standards are undertaken by the Kansas State Library to best serve the public interest by insuring the quality of the state's public libraries. Standards are defined for the structure and governance of libraries. Service objectives and standards for automation and technology are defined.…

Portfolio evaluation process promotes thinking while it minimizes multiple-choice mentality. Some educators find that reviewing with the students what they learned, with consideration for the structure of knowledge, provides self-confidence for the pupils' next try. They need self-confidence to critique each other's work, before the teacher…