Reviews and evaluates compensatory and conjunctive standard-setting strategies, presenting and discussing the rationales for each approach. Results of a comparison of the two approaches for a state high school certification writing test provide insight into the problem of choosing either strategy. (SLD)

In pedagogical literature, asynchronous, computer-mediated courses have been promoted as an interactive mode of course delivery. However, few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of different teaching strategies in this medium. In this paper, I describe the development of my asynchronous course and outline the fundamental dilemmas in…

More than eleven hundred university students were surveyed to determine attitudes toward learning and accountability. Apathy, absenteeism, and grade inflation emerged as contributing to the lack of student accountability. This article suggests institutional changes to reanimate college classrooms: explicit expectations; smaller, engaged classes;…

We compared grades and course evaluations in an undergraduate social psychology course taught using 3 different instructional formats: traditional, traditional with a course guide, and multimedia with a course guide. Students' grades (N=937) and course evaluations of grading procedures (N=547) were higher when a course guide was available. The…

Bringing together the results of the research reported in Chapters Four and Five, this chapter provides recommendations for instructor behavior consistent with the best criteria for ethical behavior toward students.

In the spring of 2003, a survey was conducted to examine the differences in perceptions of academic rigor and engagement between faculty and undergraduate students at a small, liberal arts university in the Midwest. Although a sample bias in the student responses (students with higher GPAs had a higher tendency to respond) precluded a number of…

Peer-to-peer assessment, take-home exams and a mathematical modeling survey were used to monitor and assess students' attitudes, skills and competencies in mathematical modeling. The students were all in a secondary mathematics, teacher education program with a comprehensive amount of mathematics studies behind them. Findings indicate that…

Recognizing that students shudder at revision and see it as a perfunctory task to satisfy only their teachers, the author offers an approach that motivates students to revise thoughtfully without increasing teachers' reading workload. Quite simply, good writing requires less time to read than poor writing. The Numbers Approach to grading can free…

People who become educational leadership professors usually come to their new occupation with a range of skills and experiences. Most doctoral preparation programs in educational leadership however do not always prepare future faculty members to address conflicts that arise when the actual roles and responsibilities of the new faculty member…

In this paper, the author looks at whether teachers give better subjective assessments to students of their own race and/or gender, conditionally on test scores. Subjective assessments are pervasive in schools; most teachers fill school records that include comments on the child's ability or behavior. And important decisions such as tracking,…

This study compared the effectiveness of several existing and proposed methods for statistically adjusting college grade point averages (GPAs) for course and departmental differences in grading standards, using first-semester grades from an entire entering class at a large state university (4,351 students), in 1988. Most of the adjusted GPAs…

The policy on incomplete grades at California's College of the Canyons states that incompletes may only be given under circumstances beyond students' control and that students must make arrangements with faculty prior to the end of the semester to clear the incomplete. Failure to complete an incomplete may result in an "F" grade. While…

This Digest provides a rationale for developing grading guides to use with business writing students. It describes the methods business communications teachers can use to construct and employ guides to provide students with quality writing instruction. The Digest maintains that teachers can construct either skills analysis grading guides and/or…

It is difficult to estimate the percentage of examinees who pass National Teacher Evaluation (NTE) tests because many users of the tests require that examinees pass different combinations of tests or use different passing scores for each of the tests. This study first develops a taxonomy of state NTE requirements and then computes passing rates…

The computerized "Assistant Prof" program at the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg is written in Lotus 1-2-3 to aid college professors in all their various administrative duties. The program performs four distinctive functions: (1) record keeping; (2) form producing; (3) grade calculating; and (4) feedback of student class…