This study investigates how teachers observe and assess elementary school students' foreign language performance in class and how such assessments vary among teachers. Twenty-six elementary school teachers and 23 English teachers at secondary schools in South Korea watched videotapes of 6th-grade students' group activities in English and were…

The aim of the reported study was to explore how science teachers made sense of their roles and responsibilities in teaching and assessing science coursework. The focus was on the teacher assessment, the feedback that teachers gave to students and, how they perceived their role when they taught and assessed students' science coursework reports.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to argue that taking the educational purposes of schools into account is central to understanding the place and importance of facilities to learning outcomes. The paper begins by observing that the research literature connecting facility conditions to student outcomes is mixed. A closer examination of this…

Founded in 1821, Widener University is a two-state (Pennsylvania and Delaware), four-campus, eight-college private institution serving approximately 6,700 students. Following arrival of the new senior vice president and provost in 2004 and subsequent reorganization of vice presidential responsibilities, Student Affairs is now led by a dean of…

Writing is a highly valued skill that is often neglected in the classroom; one reason is that teachers often do not receive adequate training in writing assessment and instruction. Teachers, particularly preservice teachers, need practice making detailed assessments of student writing and to build their confidence for assessing student writing,…

This Research Update synthesizes findings from the profiles of 15 research and evaluation reports added to the Out-of-School Time Program Research and Evaluation Database in December 2006. It highlights strategies for assessing program processes as well as key outcomes and features of programs that promote positive outcomes. The Harvard Family…

This Guide provides basic information to South Carolina employers regarding the nature of college degrees. It covers South Carolina law regarding the use of degrees, how to accurately describe degree needs when advertising for a position, how to evaluate a job applicant's claim of a degree, the growing problem of diploma mill degrees, and related…

The Commission is preparing to collect data for the 2007 University Eligibility Study. This study is the latest in a series of studies that began in 1966 to estimate the percentage of California public high school graduates who meet the admission requirements of the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC). CEC…

The role and function of external quality assurance is of great importance for the development of an internal quality culture in higher education. Research has shown that external quality assurance can stimulate but also create obstacles for institutional improvement. To strike a balance between improvement and accountability is, therefore, a key…

Idea evaluation has, in recent years, received more attention as a critical component of creative thought. One key influence on how people evaluate new ideas may be found in the standards, or attributes, people look for in appraising ideas. The intent of the present study was to examine the influence of different attributes on people's willingness…

Introduction: This study examined the validity of tensiometry as an objective method of assessing the improvements in the quality of knots and technical performance due to practice on suturing and knot-tying skills. Methods: We evaluated the quality of 1,830 knots produced by undergraduate medical students before training (pre-test), after…

Although digital scholarship is now well established in academia, there is no consensus about how it should be evaluated for tenure and promotion. Is digital publication acceptable as a way to disseminate research? Is the digital medium appropriate for conducting research? To what degree does creating digital materials--from research instruments…

The Spellings Commission report stresses that higher education must become more accountable, more transparent, and more open to the scrutiny of its stakeholders. The key word is always "accountability," to which the canonical reaction among educators is a reaffirmation of the remarkable diversity of American colleges and universities and the…

Background: Patients with Xp22.3 interstitial and terminal deletions have been shown to be affected by intellectual disability (ID) or autism. Previously, "VCX-A" (variably charged protein X-A), located at Xp22.3, was introduced as a gene for ID and its presence was suggested to be sufficient to maintain normal mental development. Recent reports…

Microteaching, or peer teaching, is an activity that requires science methods students to plan, teach, and evaluate a particular lesson. The peer teaching activity, although obviously similar to teaching a lesson in a traditional classroom, enables the methods students to teach to a small group of their peers, thus easily receiving constructive…