English as a subject used to be assessed using course-based or portfolio assessments but now it is increasingly examined through terminal tests. Canada is an exception to this rule. This paper compares the way English is assessed in England and Canada and looks to the ways in which the kind of assessment undertaken affects the practices of English…

Physics problems can be posed in different ways. Given a physics scenario, different problem types presenting that scenario in various ways can emphasize different instructional goals. In this investigation, we examined the views of physics graduate teaching assistants (TAs) enrolled in a semester-long TA professional development course about the…

This study was aimed at detecting the most frequently-used teaching and assessment activities in secondary school science classes, identifying links between these variables, and revealing possible challenges in these processes. To this end, data were gathered from 155 secondary school science teachers in 56 Israeli public schools and 380 grade…

Formative assessment and personalised feedback are commonly recognised as key factors both for improving students' performance and increasing their motivation and engagement (Gibbs and Simpson, 2005). Currently, in large and massive open online courses (MOOCs), technological solutions to give feedback are often limited to quizzes of different…

Self and peer-assessment are becoming central aspects of student-centred assessment processes in higher education. Despite increasing evidence that both forms of assessment are helpful for developing key capabilities in students, such as taking more responsibility for their own learning, developing a better understanding of the subject matter,…

Formative assessment, bilingualism, and argumentation when combined can enrich bilingual scientific literacy. However, argumentation receives little attention in the practice of bilingual science education. This article describes the effect of a formative assessment-based pedagogical strategy in promoting university students' argumentation. It…

In this study we identify and compare the impact of standardised student assessment in England, an established neoliberal context, and in Denmark where a neoliberal education reform agenda is emerging in response to both national concerns and international governance. National reading tests for students aged 11-12 years, long established in…

Focused self-directed learning is very much essential at present in medical education to catch-up with the increasing information load. Cognitive psychology laboratory studies show that repeated testing of information produces superior retention relative to repeated study. The overall goal of this intervention was to evaluate the effectiveness of…

One consideration for selecting progress monitoring tools is the reliability in which the instrument measures student response to instruction. Researchers and vendors establish reliability of growth using two analytic methods: (a) calculating slopes to even and odd observations for each student and correlating the resulting slopes (split-half),…

By placing the Focused Assessment approach within the TAPS pyramid framework, schools are beginning to find a number of ways in which learning in science can be enhanced for pupils. The quotations in this article provide examples of the ways in which science subject leaders (SSL) describe the impact of TAPS on their pupils.

In this article, the author examines her experiences as a mentee at an academic institution. She has had time to look back at some of what her mentor did in mentoring, and now appreciates how novel and successful some of his approaches were. She shares them in this article because she thinks her experience is evidence that broadening the…

In this article, we identify and examine opportunities for formative assessment provided by information technologies (IT) and the challenges which these opportunities present. We address some of these challenges by examining key aspects of assessment processes that can be facilitated by IT: datafication of learning; feedback and scaffolding; peer…

As explicit administrative expectations to use meaningful inquiry-based instructional activities and formative assessment tasks might influence teachers' classroom practices, this study assessed science teachers' use of contemporary educational activities and assessment tasks above and beyond their conceptions of traditional teaching and learning…

Today's schools emphasize the use of student data to make instructional decisions. Standardized tests determine funding and teacher advancement (Datnow, Park, & Wholstetter, 2007; Gullo, 2013; Marchant & Paulson, 2009; Schraw, 2010). To evaluate learning before these tests, teachers must utilize their own assessments and data. Formative…

This study is aimed at investigating the level of teacher-written feedback self-efficacy among Malaysian secondary school teachers and the influence of teachers' age, gender, qualifications and teaching experiences on their written feedback self-efficacy. Bandura (1986) had mentioned that of all the different aspects of self-knowledge, none is…