Academies were started in 2000 to alter the fortunes of failing schools that disproportionately served students from some of the nation's poorest communities. By helping these schools with the support of philanthropic, educational and business partners, the intention was to improve the lives of young people from the least privileged backgrounds by…

Library and Information Studies (LIS) faculty members responded to a survey of their opinions on the use, advantages, and disadvantages of a variety of end of program assessments (EPAs) in LIS master's programs. Portfolio was the most widely preferred top choice for EPAs, but opinions ranged from preference for no EPA to preference for a…

With many states crafting assessments based on the common-core standards--and an increasing emphasis on college and career readiness--some are rethinking the kind of tests high school students must pass to graduate, or whether to use such exit exams at all. Twenty-five states, enrolling a total of 34.1 million students, make exit exams a…

General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and General Certificate of Education (GCE) grading standards are determined by Awarding Bodies using procedures that adhere to the Code of Practice published by the regulator, Ofqual. Grade boundary marks (cut scores) are set using subject experts' (senior examiners) judgement of the quality of…

Many innovation-oriented concepts have recently been discussed as means to improve science education and instruction as well as the corresponding tests and exit exams. So far, empirical evidence of whether these new concepts for exam tasks actually find their way into the exam practice is still pending. This contribution takes up this desideratum…

The study investigated the impact of item position in multiple-choice test on student performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level in Ghana. The sample consisted of 810 Junior Secondary School (JSS) Form 3 students selected from 12 different schools. A quasi-experimental design was used. The instrument for the project…

A key form of student-level accountability is the requirement for students to pass high school exit exams (HSEEs) in order to receive a diploma. In this paper, we examine the impact of HSEEs on dropout during a period when these exams became more common and rigorous. Further, we study whether offering alternate pathways to graduation for students…

California and many other states require students to pass an exit examination as a high school graduation requirement. Coupled with the exit examination requirement is school accountability to the state and the federal government. Despite academic interventions, many students continue to fail the exit examination resulting in not earning a…

Preparation for today's influenced technology professional world starts with structure of primary and secondary educational learning environments. The student learning platforms should be aligned in some ways to professional working platforms. This quantitative correlational ex post facto study compared the effectiveness of learning modalities in…

Various newspaper articles report that British ministers, university representatives, exam chiefs and business bodies agree that foreign languages skills in primary, secondary and tertiary UK education are in crisis. Lower funding and policy changes have caused language skills deficiencies felt gravely in the business sectors. Funding and support…

After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

Various sociological frameworks strongly suggest that recent changes to the English literature GCSE syllabus content will have a detrimental effect on those individuals who come from an environment with few sources of educationally exchangeable literary and linguistic cultural capital. In an attempt to provide a more sociological position from…

This memorandum presents results from the Center on Standards and Assessments Implementation's (CSAI's) most recent scan of state assessment systems, with attention to changes from the previous school year to the 2014-2015 school year. CSAI derived the information reported in this memorandum from websites maintained by state, district, and…

Low pass rates on the National Council Licensure Exam for Registered Nurses have directed nursing faculty to examine how to predict the readiness of the nursing student. Exit exam testing that predicts readiness has become one way to assess the nursing student's readiness. Nursing students at the research site's school of nursing are…

The central aim of standardized exit exams is to motivate students and teachers to work harder on critical subject matters and thus increase student achievement. However, the effects of the implementation of central exams on student motivation have not been analyzed in a longitudinal section until now. In the present study, the consequences of…