An evaluation of the 1980-90 employment projections in the "Occupational Outlook Handbook" shows that most of them were on target, if somewhat conservative. The impact of technology was generally underestimated. (JOW)

The Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS) permits formal formative evaluation in which observable behavior data are used for self-renewal by the teacher and summative evaluation in which administrative action for promotion purposes may be pursued. This article addresses basic TTAS components, focusing on the provision of collaborative…

Discusses confirmative evaluation of instructional materials and learners that completes a cycle of evaluative steps to maintain performance standards of an instructional system. Formative and summative evaluation procedures for learners and instructional materials are described, examples of confirmative evaluation are given, and types of…

The assessment of students' work falls into two categories: formative assessment whose aims are to inform students of their progress throughout a course of study, and summative assessment, usually taken at the end of a module or program and provides marks or grades for progression to the next stage in education. Examines the process of curriculum…

This explores the constructivist understanding that shared practitioner research in collaborative online spaces leads to deeper learning. The research was developed within the context of building the National College of School Leaderships (NCSLs) online learning communities. A community and a learning scale, both emerging through grounded…

Problem-solving is one of the main goals in science teaching and is something many students find difficult. This research reports on the development, implementation and evaluation of a problem-solving heuristic. This heuristic intends to help students to understand the steps involved in problem solving (metacognitive tool), and to provide them…

The author intends to add one particular national point of view to a previous comparative reflection done by Black and Wiliam (2005), whose thesis is the need to study particular cases before making general proposals addressing the implementation of formative assessment practices. Teachers' conceptions about assessment are considered to be one…

Over the last decade, larger student numbers, reduced resources and increasing use of new technologies have led to the increased use of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) as a method of assessment in higher education courses. This paper identifies some limitations associated with MCQs from a pedagogical standpoint. It then provides an assessment…

R. D. Howell, E. Breivik, and J. B. Wilcox (2007) have argued that causal (formative) indicators are inherently subject to interpretational confounding. That is, they have argued that using causal (formative) indicators leads the empirical meaning of a latent variable to be other than that assigned to it by a researcher. Their critique of causal…

Broadly defined, digital moviemaking integrates a variety of media (images, sound, text, video, narration) to communicate with an audience. There is near-ubiquitous access to the necessary software (MovieMaker and iMovie are bundled free with their respective operating systems) and hardware (computers with Internet access, digital cameras, etc.).…

In an attempt to ensure students had a positive experience in their first semester, and to encourage future effective use of tutors' feedback comments, a post-1992 university used a module in the school of education to develop an innovative feedback process. The process involved four stages: a first submission of written work, written feedback on…

One potentially feasible tool for use in the formative assessment of social behavior is the direct behavior rating, yet empirical support for the reliability of its use is limited. In this study, generalizability theory was used to provide preliminary psychometric data regarding the generalizability and dependability of the direct behavior rating…

This paper reports the development of innovative assessment sessions within two core technical courses in Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland. Peer Assessment Learning Sessions (PALS) facilitate a student's peer assessment of a colleague's problem-based learning assignment or tutorial within a "traditional" whole-class…

This article is concerned with the meanings that employees in industry attribute to representations of data and the contingencies of these meanings in context. Our primary concern is to more precisely characterize how the context of the industrial process is constitutive of the meaning of graphs of data derived from this process. We draw on data…

A study of New Zealand secondary school students using four self-report inventories of conceptions of assessment found four robust independent measurement models. Four structural models mapped the conceptions of assessment to mathematics achievement taking into account student ethnicity and student sex. The conceptions that assessment makes…