Assessment is an essential, ongoing instructional component that guides the learning process. Ongoing assessment uses exhibitions, student explanations of concepts, the writing of a poem or song, or other thought-demanding performances to evaluate and reflect on students' work. This article uses a high school literature and justice unit to…

Addresses the challenge of finding or creating alternatives to tests and traditional grading systems. Reflects on and describes the experience of creating an assessment tool and cautions against choosing alternatives that merely camouflage the grades. Encourages educators to find authentic alternatives to describe children's growth. (BAC)

Proposes authentic assessment and pragmatic instruction as two strategies for closing the literacy gap for African Americans. (PRA)

Discusses recommendations of the Kentucky Department of Education's Task Force of High School Restructuring, and notes how some of its recommendations recall W. H. Kilpatrick's "project method" from the early 20th century. (SR)

Investigates HyperCard as a tool for assessment in science education and determines whether or not a HyperCard assessment instrument could differentiate between expert and novice student performance on balancing stoichiometric equations in science education. (ZWH)

Offers a complete, thorough, all-inclusive, demanding-but-fair, easy-to-use drama performance evaluation method. Lists eight categories to evaluate for each performance, and suggests questions for each category. (PRA)

Authentic assessment in elementary school technology education is linked to a continuum of teacher behavior: nondirective, mediating, directive, and concurrent with teaching. It should be a two-way process between the students and the activity. (JOW)

Presents an early stage evaluation model that was used to provide a framework to assess the effectiveness of three comprehensive community initiative projects that were put in place in Nebraska in 1996. Discusses challenges of evaluating these broadbased initiatives and pitfalls in using result-based performance evaluation. (SLD)

Reviews the literature and outlines a framework for performance measurement and evaluation within post-secondary continuing education. In the framework, performance measurement serves as ongoing data collection and decision support, placing outputs, outcomes, and ratios as performance indicators in a matrix. (SLD)

Performance assessment in vocational education should be realistic and multidimensional, involve products and/or process, range from simple to complex, be open ended, and involve human judgment. Key issues include validity, reliability, costs, and consequences. (SK)

Introduces the articles of this theme issue focusing on performance assessment methodology. Papers address: (1) merging item formats; (2) scoring models; (3) equating and linking; (4) generalizability theory; (5) standard setting methods; and (6) validity issues and methods. (SLD)

Discusses a survey of 387 Nebraska school library media specialists regarding their perceived roles (as teacher, information specialist, instructional consultant) and school district evaluation practices. Fully 72% are not evaluated at all, are evaluated on a teacher-evaluation form, or are evaluated without apparent criteria. They are not…

Discusses what researchers say about science assessment and the need for an assessment that evaluates students on their ability to demonstrate the scientific process in a meaningful, hands-on fashion. Creates a wide-scale, performance-based assessment tool for elementary science. Provides example task questions and rubrics. (ASK)

Developed and field tested the Performance Accountability Quality Scale (PAQS) on 191 program performance measurement systems developed by nonprofit agencies in central Florida. Preliminary findings indicate that the PAQS provides a structure for obtaining expert opinions based on a theory-driven model about the quality of proposed measurement…

Reviews the conclusions drawn in articles in this special issue and comments on some of the major themes, including paradigm debates, context issues, the role of evaluators and evaluation, the performance measurement movement, and the impact of new technologies on evaluation. (SLD)