The Department of Education has undertaken an ambitious effort to develop statewide occupational skill standards. The standards in this document are for Collision Repair Technology programs, and are designed to clearly state what the Collision Repair Technology student should know and be able to do upon completion of an advanced high school…

Contemporary assessment practices in science education have undergone significant changes in recent decades. The basis for these changes and the resulting new assessment practices are the subject of this two-part paper. Part 1 considers the basis of assessment that, more than 25 years ago, was driven by the assumptions of decomposability and…

Education accompanied by social mobility is the cornerstone of the American dream. Yet, each year scores of children, especially those from the underprivileged class, fail to meet even the most modest academic expectations and subsequently never reach their academic potential. This research rejects earlier explanations of academic failure and…

Until recently, little attention has been paid to the language and academic needs of English as a second language (ESL) students in the social studies classroom. In the most recent review and one of the few written on social studies texts and instruction, Short (1998) found that ESL students do not receive the language and academic support they…

Although peer reviewing of writing is a way to create more writing opportunities in college and university settings, the validity and reliability of peer-generated grades are a major concern. This study investigated the validity and reliability of peer-generated writing grades of 708 students across sixteen different courses from four universities…

A broad literature seeks to assess the importance of schools, proxies for school quality, and family background on children's achievement growth using the education production function. Using rich data from the Philippines, we introduce and estimate a model that imposes little structure on the relationship between intake achievement and follow-up…

The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) introduced a performance appraisal system (PAS) designed to improve performance indicators across the board in Public Service including academic/faculty staff at the University of Zimbabwe as part of a nation wide strategy. The Public service is a body responsible for all civil workers including academic staff,…

Objective: The goal of this study is to investigate decision making in children with ADHD using a child version of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The effect of internalizing symptoms is also of interest. Method: Twenty-one children with ADHD (high anxiety/depression and no anxiety/depression) are compared to an age- and sex-matched control group on…

Many educators contend that standardized assessments coerce instructors into teaching-to-the-test, a method which they claim promotes rote learning, limits academic growth and marginalizes at-risk learners. However, this researcher asserts that when underachieving developmental community college students are instructed with techniques congruent…

This study investigated the score exchangeability of concept maps with problem-solving essays. Of interest was whether sixth-grade students' concept maps predicted their scores on essay responses that used concept map content. Concept maps were hypothesized to be alternatives to performance assessments for content-area domain knowledge in science.…

The research project presented in this article was set in the Swedish school context and carried out on a set of compulsory national tests for English, Swedish, and mathematics used at the end of compulsory school. The aims were: (a) to gain a deeper knowledge of the internal structure of the tests and (b) to separate individual performance from…

The primary purpose of this investigation was to understand the influence of access to the general curriculum on the performance of students with significant cognitive disabilities, as measured by the Wisconsin Alternate Assessment (WAA) for Students with Disabilities. Special education teachers (N=113) submitted case materials for students with…

Entries in this bibliography represent current holdings of the Test Center of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in the area of alternative assessment ideas for science. Alternative refers to holdings on topics other than standardized, norm-referenced tests. The list emphasizes performance assessments, portfolios, and technological…

The long-range research and development needs for integrating assessment into instruction are discussed, and how ready the educational community is to begin making blueprints for this integration is explored. This paper addresses the problems of learning progress, diagnostic assessment, the design and implementation of performance tasks, and…

This digest examines the use of standardized, nationally normed testing in assessing the progress of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students and describes alternative forms of assessment. For years, researchers have criticized the overuse of standardized, nationally normed tests to assess learner and school success. Problems with such…