Imagine conducting a classroom observation and having a professional-looking observation report completed before you ever leave the room. This CD is the busy school administrator's best friend, bringing the tasks of completing classroom observation reports and performance evaluation reports into the 21st century. This innovative CD-ROM helps make…

The purpose of this briefing paper is to review common approaches to performance evaluation in accountability systems, in order to recommend a workable approach for California Community colleges, as the system seeks to meet the requirements of district-level accountability required by AB 1417. The recommendations within this paper capture commonly…

This paper first provides a summary and overview of what is already known and what is needed to learn about item types for future assessments by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In essence, the question addressed is whether constructed response items provide more information about what students are capable of doing than that…

The GenScope Assessment Project is studying assessment in the context of a month-long computer-supported learning environment for introductory genetics. Across three annual iterations with multiple teachers, project researchers manipulated the materials, incentives, and contexts in which students were invited to use formative feedback on…

The project's focus was to learn more about the ways to best assess and support the development of numeracy in the early grades. Project goals include involving teachers and researchers in: (1) the creation and use of performance-based tasks most appropriate for assessing numeracy in young learners; (2) the development and refinement of…

An assessment tool was designed and implemented to increase consistent application among and between multiple raters assessing students in driver education. The targeted population was students in grades 9 through 12 enrolled in drive education at a high school in an affluent suburb near a large city. The problem of a lack of a consistent…

The purpose of this study was to provide statistical evidence to demonstrate that peer collaboration on math homework increases academic performance in math. This study examined the benefits of peer collaboration on two unit tests on multiplication. It compared the results of students who worked collaboratively on homework and those who did not.…

In 1994 the State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards of the Council of Chief State School Officers began a study to examine the generalizability of performance-based assessments (PBAs) for state-mandated assessment programs. The intent was to examine the major sources of error associated with PBAs and the generalizability and…

This report documents progress at the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) on the feasibility of scoring concept maps using technology. CRESST, in its integrated simulation approach to assessment, has assembled a suite of performance assessment tasks (the integrated simulation) onto which they have mapped the…

This paper examines the purpose, validity, and reliability of performance indicators in higher education, focusing on the experience of higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. Specifically, it studies the role of student entry and exit performance, teaching and staff quality, retention and completion, and placement in employment as…

This book describes two high school teachers' efforts to align curriculum, assessment, and performance standards, troubleshooting issues surrounding content standards, instructional objectives, and curricular aims. Eight chapters examine: (1) "What Does a Competent Classroom Look Like?"; (2) "What Drives a Course?" (e.g.,…

This paper examines ways to help administrators and scholars in administrator preparation make sense of the accountability debates. It links possibilities for accountability to one's epistemological lens and claims that administrators can enhance student success by taking a pluralistic view of accountability. The text recounts the historical…

The papers from this seminar focused on the role of performance indicators in distance education, particularly the planning, development, production, and distribution of performance indicators. The papers are: (1) "Inaugural Address" (G. Dhanarajan); (2) "Presidential Address" (R. G. Takwale); (3) "Performance Indicators…

The purpose of the current study was to use multilevel modeling to quantify and explain the sources of score variation in standardized patient (SP) encounters. Through laypersons trained to portray SPs and record medical student actions, SP examinations allow the measurement of examinees' clinical and interpersonal skills. In this study, the SP…

The Virginia legislature has imposed a four-year freeze on tuition for all colleges in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). This paper suggests that freezing tuition rates can only be a temporary fix in the search to find ways to fund education. The paper examines the effects of stable or lowered tuition rates in community colleges: will…