Making connections is an emerging education theme of the 21st century. Science teachers are encouraged to connect new learning with prior knowledge, learning with student interests and experience, and classroom activities with the history and nature of science. Strategies that facilitate these connections enrich and enhance instruction. In this…

In this article, the authors present the findings of an intensive training series designed to train school-site teams in functional assessment procedures. They examined the extent to which participation in an intensive training series that included on-site follow-up was sufficient to provide participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to…

This article describes the literature-based, testable, formative Patient-Centered Culturally Sensitive Health Care Model that explains the associations between patient-centered culturally sensitive health care, health-promoting treatment behaviors, and health outcomes and statuses. An intervention program based on the model and its foundational…

Assessment can be one of the most difficult aspects of teaching. The educational, emotional, and formative ramifications of judging a young person's work can weigh heavily on the mind of a teacher. In spite of the anxiety it poses, knowing how to assess students in order to improve instruction is a core principle of effective teaching. This…

An invitation to explore innovative practices in program and system evaluation in a medium-sized school jurisdiction of approximately 11,000 students has resulted in a model with generative characteristics. This paper will describe the process, and several of the outcomes, when a generative evaluation approach is used to assess the effectiveness…

Recent years have seen a growing awareness of the incidence of plagiarism, though the response has largely been to focus on deterrence through detection and punishment. However, student plagiarism is a much more complex issue than suggested by a one-solution response and this paper argues for a more holistic institutional approach that recognises…

Adaptive tests offer the advantages of reduced test length and increased accuracy in ability estimation. However, adaptive tests require large pools of precalibrated items. This study looks at the development of an item pool for 1 type of adaptive administration: the computer-adaptive sequential test. An important issue is the sample size required…

The goal of this study was to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of two interventions aimed at reducing alcohol-related risks at community festivals--a training program for festival planners and a community organizing campaign. We randomly selected four festivals for each intervention and had 24 comparison festivals. Our assessment included…

This review essay describes in detail two recent publications: "Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms" (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation [CERI], 2005, Paris, OECD) and "Towards Coherence Between Classroom Assessment and Accountability" ("The 103rd Yearbook of the National Society…

In 2001, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began the process of redesigning the U.S. naturalization tests due to concerns that the current testing procedure may not be sufficiently uniform, and that the test content may not be appropriate. A National Research Council committee issued recommendations, based largely on the…

It is increasingly argued that the effectiveness of health promotion interventions should be measured to inform policy and practice. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) continues to be regarded as the "gold standard" of health services research but health promotion practitioners have raised concerns about the RCT's appropriateness for evaluating…

This article presents a formative evaluation of a CDC Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) 2010 faith-based breast and cervical cancer early detection and prevention intervention for African American women living in urban communities. Focus groups were conducted with a sample of women (N = 94) recruited from each church…

Formative research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to provide information for researchers to plan intervention programs. Gaps in the formative research literature include how to define goals, implementation plans, and research questions; select methods; analyze data; and develop interventions. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood…

Almost every K-8 technology activity includes feedback. Technology teachers generally view the input-process-output paradigm as being incomplete. A step toward completion would be the inclusion of a "feedback" component incorporating reengineering. This article provides an example of how one activity evolved through several stages to include…

The Diagnostic Learning Log (Angelo and Cross 1993) is a focused journal entry where students indicate what they have learned from a particular unit, pose questions, indicate aspects of classroom practice they found helpful, and provide suggestions for facilitating their own understanding of the subject matter. The log provides an instructor with…