This is the eighth annual report on California higher education performance indicators prepared by the California Postsecondary Education Commission under a legislative mandate. The report presents background on the development and recent revision of California's performance indicators for higher education, describes the scope of the current set…

This book describes students' accumulation of literacy and enables teachers to assess students independently of standardized tests. The "Profiles" includes scales and reporting formats, sample materials, guidelines for assessment, and norms. Reporting software issued separately complements this book. The chapters are: (1) "What Is a…

The focus in this study was on science achievement measures and their relationships to three reasoning dimensions: basic knowledge and reasoning, spatial-mechanical reasoning, and quantitative science reasoning. Thirty multiple-choice items, 8 constructed response items, and 3 performance assessments, each nominally assigned to 1 of the reasoning…

This report describes a project for improving students' listening and motivation. The action research took place from September 2001 through January 2002. The targeted first grade reading and eighth grade physical education students live in rural, Midwestern, middle- to high-income communities located in central Illinois. The problem was that…

National Board Certification is a voluntary process established by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to measure what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do. Certification is achieved through a rigorous performance-based assessment that takes between one and three years to complete. As of November 2004,…

Assessing complex teaching performance in the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has caused the Educational Testing Service to wrestle with fundamental scoring issues that are both conceptual and technical. This report reviews the challenges encountered, how they are being addressed, and what the NBPTS effort has learned…

A study was proposed to determine to what extent a hierarchical structure exists in music and in tests used to measure music ability. The first research question was whether items in the Watkins-Farnum Performance Scale (J. Watkins and S. Farnum, 1954) (WFPS) form a hierarchy, so that early exercises (bars played) are generally easier than later…

AIM (Assessment, Instruction, Mastery), a performance-based assessment developed in Oregon, was piloted in 25 volunteer-based programs in Pennsylvania. During the program year ending in June 1999, 190 tutors and program staff from 20 agencies attended training workshops on using the AIM system; 13 programs receiving training reported 136 tutors…

Suggesting that a literature-rich classroom environment encourages, supports, and celebrates the role of children's literature throughout every aspect of the elementary curriculum, this book presents plans, procedures, and units that engage teachers, stimulate students, and energize classroom learning environments. The first part addresses the…

From the late 1950s through today, hands-on science has been promoted as a method of science instruction. Currently, recent national science reform efforts seek to temper its role. However, no consensus has been reached on the relationship of hands-on science to student achievement, though this has been researched since the turn of the 20th…

Colleges and universities have come under increasing pressure from various constituencies to demonstrate their effectiveness in measurable terms and to justify their existence in an era of declining resources. A critical element in meeting these demands is a systematic and comprehensive approach to assessment, which demonstrates the effectiveness…

This book shows how teachers and specialists can be better informed about students' reading and writing abilities by observing students engaged in the processes of reading and writing than by administering isolated tests. The book demonstrates where traditional approaches to assessment fail and how to better help struggling students. Each chapter…

Whether students of various ages reported different self-perceptions of their writing because of survey design effects was studied. As part of a writing performance assessment, 1,972 students in an urban/suburban school district in grades 3 (n=736), 6 (n=636), and 9 (n=600) completed a brief self-perception survey that contained 5 items measuring…

This action research project evaluated a program for improving motor skills in kindergartners by incorporating into the core curriculum motor activities, new materials focused on motor skills, and authentic assessments of motor skills. Teacher observations, scores from the DIAL-R (Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning-Revised)…

Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to reading and applying technical information from a variety of English…