A study was conducted by Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC), in North Carolina, to determine the perceptions of employers of CPCC graduates regarding the graduates' level of preparation. Questionnaires were sent to 160 employers who had CPCC graduates in positions related to their graduates' academic programs and for whom graduates had…

The purpose of this study was to align verbal descriptions of test takers' language performance with distributions of the numerical scores they received on the three sections (Listening Comprehension, Structure and Written Expression, and Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary) of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The descriptors of…

School report cards can help focus the conversation about a school's long-range goals and how they might be achieved, and then provide the means to track progress from year to year. This document describes the characteristics of good report cards, the relationship of report cards to local decision making, and ways to link reports to school…

This digest describes support strategies for overcoming obstacles to finding and maintaining employment for students with emotional disorders. These youths may avoid risk-taking situations and often have difficulty with verbal and nonverbal communication, such as struggling to make telephone calls to employers and exhibiting limited communication…

This digest discusses the development and implementation of performance indicators in higher education, focusing on the factors driving increased demand for accountability in higher education and the use of performance indicators. It discusses the public and political concern for increased emphasis on undergraduate education, productivity,…

A group of faculty at the University of Georgia obtained funding for a research and development facility called the Learning and Performance Support Laboratory (LPSL). One of the LPSL's primary needs was obtaining a portable usability lab for software testing, so the facility obtained the "Luggage Lab 2000." The lab is transportable to…

Computer-based instruction opens new avenues for increasing the variety of possible feedback strategies that a teacher may employ to optimize learner performance. Feedback effectiveness is influenced by the nature of learning task and student ability. This study investigates the effects of digitized feedback and ability on the achievement of…

Standards-based reform calls for the setting of challenging standards in academic subject areas as an important means of improving student achievement. In 1994, Congress passed the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which enacted the education goals into law and provided resources for the development of standards and assessments. This report offers…

Assessment of counselor performance is directly linked to assessment of counseling outcomes because counseling outcome is contingent upon counselor performance. Thus, the assessment of counseling outcome literature is the general context for the more specific literature on assessment of counselor performance. Historically, counselor performance…

In the mid-1980s, partly through new developments in curriculum and instruction, a new assessment option has arisen under the banner of alternative assessment. The basic idea appears in several guises: "authentic assessment" (implying that standardized tests are not authentic), "performance tests," and "portfolios." The goal of writing portfolios…

This guide discusses possibilities for implementing a mathematically powerful program in the classroom. The chapters highlight such issues as a constructivist perspective on learning, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics goals and curriculum standards, the classroom climate, integrated learning, and alternative assessment procedures.…

The New American Schools Development Corporation (NASDC), a private nonprofit corporation, was created in 1991 to fund the development of new designs for high-performance schools. Since 1993, the designs have been implemented at over 200 schools nationwide. This book presents the findings of a formative evaluation conducted by RAND Corporation for…

Advocates for change in educational assessment recommend that assessments of achievement should be designed to reflect real-life performance more precisely than traditional standardized tests can. This paper raises questions about the claims that are frequently made by advocates of assessment reform. It is agreed that assessment practices are in…

Recently, there has been a significant expansion in the use of performance assessment in large scale testing programs. Although there has been significant support from curriculum and policy stakeholders, the technical feasibility of large scale performance assessments has remained a question. This report is intended to contribute to the debate by…

This policy brief discusses students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their school performance. Reasons are presented to explain why children with ADHD fail. The three main characteristics of ADHD (inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity) and their interference with academic performance are discussed. The brief…