Based on her study of the assessment and validation of final year projects in two academic departments--one located in a humanities faculty and the other in an engineering faculty of a South African university--Suellen Shay argues that the assessment of complex tasks is a socially situated interpretive act. Her argument centers on three questions.…

Questions used in course evaluations should mainly measure the quality of teaching, and students' answers to those questions should not be influenced by other factors. This paper investigates how seemingly neutral rating scales and multiple-choice questions might have an impact on the results of such evaluations. In several studies, it has been…

Although peer reviewing of writing is a way to create more writing opportunities in college and university settings, the validity and reliability of peer-generated grades are a major concern. This study investigated the validity and reliability of peer-generated writing grades of 708 students across sixteen different courses from four universities…

Contemporary theories of learning postulate one or at most a small number of different learning mechanisms. However, people are capable of mastering a given task through qualitatively different learning paths such as learning by instruction and learning by doing. We hypothesize that the knowledge acquired through such alternative paths differs…

A broad literature seeks to assess the importance of schools, proxies for school quality, and family background on children's achievement growth using the education production function. Using rich data from the Philippines, we introduce and estimate a model that imposes little structure on the relationship between intake achievement and follow-up…

This paper discusses how assessment practices in higher education can improve or hinder learning. An example is given to illustrate some common educational practices that may be contributing to underpreparation and underperformance of students. Elements of effective learning environments that may better address underlying metacognitive issues are…

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) are required to pass the same competency exams as students enrolled in general education in order to graduate to new grade levels and to earn a high school diploma. In this study, the authors taught students with SLD a self-directed organizational strategy designed to assist them in passing the…

To maintain the legacy of cutting edge scientific innovation in the United States our country must address the many pressing issues facing science education today. One of the most important issues relating to science education is the under-representation of African Americans and Hispanics in the science, technology, and engineering workforce.…

We examined the wildlife knowledge of primary (aged 4-12) schoolchildren. In particular, we examined the effects of children's age and gender, as well as the taxonomy and origin (indigenous versus exotic) of wildlife, on the degree of knowledge about different species. We used illustrated "flashcards" of mammals, birds and arthropods,…

The relationship between the library and its patrons is damaged and the library's reputation suffers when returned items are not checked in. An informal survey reveals librarians' concern for this problem and their efforts to combat it, although few libraries collect objective measurements of errors or the effects of improvement efforts. Brigham…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and implementation of community-based, service-learning field projects by 30 health professional faculty fellows of Project MAINSTREAM, a faculty development program on substance abuse. The fellows worked together for two years in 10 Interdisciplinary Faculty Learning Groups (IFLGs), which…

The article explores how homelessness may impact on the educational participation of children and young people in families living in emergency accommodation in Dublin. Many difficulties arise in terms of maintaining consistent schooling for children when they are part of a homeless family, including problems getting to and from school if living at…

This study aimed to demonstrate an approach to measuring the value-added contribution to academic achievement made by education, and to identify the direct and indirect effects of a school's practices and its contexts. Multilevel modeling using hierarchical linear model (HLM) was employed to adjust the effect of pupil background characteristics…

Over the past two decades, scholars and practitioners in a variety of industries have considered work redesign among a constellation of strategies to promote employee recruitment and retention, development, motivation, and performance. Although educational policymakers in the middle to late 1990s shifted their attention to standards, systemic…

While student difficulty with academic referencing is not new, it is apparent that many tertiary students are not skilled in following referencing conventions, are confused about what does and does not constitute plagiarism in the eyes of academics, and are fearful of the consequences. This paper begins by examining the cases of a number of…