Critical thinking is an important outcome of a college education. Assessment techniques that require students to demonstrate their understanding of course concepts are referred to as authentic assessment and promote the development of critical thinking. Little research exists on the types of assessment and grading practices utilized by community…

In an October 22, 2010, speech to teacher educators at Columbia University's Teachers College, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proclaimed that revolutionary change in the education of teachers is essential if the problems facing U.S. society and U.S. schools are to be solved. Toward the end of his speech, he declared that a standardized…

The study investigated the perceptions of student teachers towards teaching practice assessment. Participants N=180:90 males, 90 females were randomly drawn from three primary school teachers' colleges in Masvingo Educational Region of Zimbabwe. A questionnaire was used to gather data from the respondents. A chi-square test was used to analyse the…

Using data from 10 states, Hyde, Lindberg, Linn, Ellis, and Williams (2008) found gender similarities in performance on standardized math tests. The present study attempted to replicate this finding with national data and to extend it by examining whether gender similarities in math performance are moderated by race, socioeconomic status, or math…

This article is based on an experiment designed to conduct an interpreting test for multiple candidates online, using web-based synchronous cyber classrooms. The test model was based on the accreditation test for Professional Interpreters produced by the National Accreditation Authority of Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) in Australia.…

School librarians nationwide seek to produce evidence of the library's impact on student learning and achievement. While classroom teachers demonstrate their impact through the use of standardized test scores including end-of-grade tests and SAT/ACT tests, school librarians have long used informal or in-class assessments to gauge student learning.…

The Critical Success Factors Report is the North Carolina Community College System's major accountability document. This annual performance report is based on data compiled from the previous year and serves to inform colleges and the public on the performance of North Carolina's 58 community colleges. In 1993, the State Board of Community Colleges…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of competitive Student Team Achievement Division (STAD), non-competitive STAD, and traditional learning on chemistry learning and learning perceptions. Sample, design and methods: By adopting the STAD approach, this study examined 144 nursing students at a five-year junior…

Education policy in the U.S. in the last two decades has emphasized large-scale assessment of students, with growing consequences for schools, teachers, and students. Given the high stakes of such tests, it is important to understand the relationships between students' answers to test items and their knowledge and skills in the tested content…

This paper reports on the results of a 3-year study conducted at the Centre for Schooling and Learning Technologies (CSaLT) at Edith Cowan University in collaboration with the Curriculum Council of Western Australia which concerns the potential to use digital technologies to represent the output from assessment tasks in the senior secondary…

Educational performance based on the learning outcomes of formal schooling in a future knowledge society could be significantly different from that of today. This study investigates the possibilities of developing an educational performance indicator for new-millennium learners (NMLs). The researchers conducted literature reviews, a meeting of…

The purpose of this review is to briefly summarize the state of authentic assessment as it evolves theoretically and then integrates itself into educational practice. Some of the questions it seeks to answer from the literature include: how did it begin; what were the circumstances surrounding its inception; how does it relate to performance and…

This article introduces the concept of progress monitoring to parents, highlighting its goal of providing parents and teachers information that can help children learn more and learn faster, and to help teachers teach more effectively and make better decisions about the type of instruction that will work best with each student.

Performance feedback is one of the most widely used tools in organizational settings. To date, little research has been conducted focusing on comparisons of the differential effects of the sources, frequency, or media used for feedback on both the quality and quantity of performance. This research investigated the effects of different feedback…

NCHEMS (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems) has worked with the National Association of Systems heads (NASH)--with support from the Lumina Foundation for Education--to develop (1) empirically-based access regions for postsecondary institutions based on student enrollment patterns and (2) access, transition, and completion…