Since its inception in Texas a baker's dozen years ago, educators look forward with every new legislative session to another round of discussion about the "top 10 percent rule," which guarantees admission to the state's public universities for these talented high school graduates. Originally passed as a way to increase enrollment of…

Those who design admissions policies and procedures are the gatekeepers of higher education, and thereby play a role in shaping the direction of human society. Every year selective universities face the difficult challenge of sifting through the application materials of millions of high school graduates and deciding which applicants should be…

This study aimed at determining academic staff satisfaction with promotion criteria and what, in their view, should be included in the promotion criteria. A researcher-designed questionnaire was utilized for data collection from a sample size of 349 academic staff. Findings show that the majority of the academic staff were dissatisfied with the…

If a grade is to be trusted as an authentic representation of a student's level of academic achievement, one of the requirements is that all the elements that contribute to that grade must qualify as achievement, and not be something else. The implications of taking this proposition literally turn out to be far reaching. Many elements that are…

Just as it has every June since 2006, the U.S. Department of Education last month delivered a rating to each state and territory based on the performance of its special education programs. The ratings, intended to fulfill the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's requirement that "measurable" and "rigorous" targets be…

Repositories with educational resources can support the formation of online learning communities by providing a platform for collaboration. Users (e.g. teachers, tutors and learners) access repositories, search for interesting resources to access and use, and in many cases, also exchange experiences and opinions. A particular class of online…

Drawing primarily upon interview and observation data, the aims, admission policies, and curriculum of two "strong" Christian schools, one in the Netherlands and one in England, are compared and contrasted. Analysis of the beliefs and values of children, parents, and school leaders challenges assumptions about "strong"…

White privilege is a large part of the hidden infrastructure of American society, directing, driving, and often invisibly and subtly determining outcomes such as employment, housing, education, and even interpersonal relationships. In order for white privilege, a system that allows whites to prevail, to exist, there must be a counterbalance, a…

Over breakfast at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, this author was asked, "What is authority? What does one know about the ways in which he/she determines credibility? Whom do you trust?" In this article, the author focuses on these questions in terms of administrators who have control over libraries. She provides a…

The finding and the recruiting of scientists have been a long-standing issue in higher education. Due to the dearth of reliable evidence on scholarly potential at an early stage of a scientist's career, the hiring department often has to look for alternative assessment criteria. Drawing on the similarity-attraction theory, it is hypothesized that…

The purpose of this study was to survey assessment and grading practices employed by secondary music teachers throughout the southwestern region of the United States. Three main research questions guided the study: (1) What types of school district frameworks and classroom contexts are secondary music teachers operating within? (2) Which specific…

Assessment for Learning (AfL) is an established learning and teaching strategy. The authors identify issues with the effectiveness of its application in the classroom. Having noted a theoretical shift from teacher-generated to pupil-generated success criteria, the authors were keen to explore how this could be realised in practice. They developed…

Various applications of item response theory often require linking to achieve a common scale for item parameter estimates obtained from different groups. This article used a simulation to examine the relative performance of four different item response theory (IRT) linking procedures in a random groups equating design: concurrent calibration with…

Admissions committees and researchers around the globe have used diligence and imagination to develop and implement various screening measures with the ultimate goal of predicting future clinical and professional performance. What works for predicting future job performance in the human resources world and in most of the academic world may not,…

Professional preparatory health programmes generally involve clinical placements with a focus on integration of theory into real life practice. Reflective writing is often included in the assessment requirements for clinical placement courses. However enabling students to engage in deeper levels of reflective writing in action, on action and for…