Research suggests that development of the alphabetic principle is a critical factor in learning to recognize words and becoming a successful reader. The alphabetic principle encompasses both the understanding that relationships exist between letters and sounds and the application of these relationships to reading words. This study investigated the…

Background: In 2008 primary education in England reached, historically, another important phase in its development. Government reviewed the primary curriculum and some aspects of the national system of assessment. These government reviews coincided with an independent "Primary Review" based at the University of Cambridge to which the…

On a general level, the objective of diagnostic classifications models (DCMs) lies in a classification of individuals regarding multiple latent skills. In this article, the authors show that this objective can be achieved by multidimensional adaptive testing (MAT) as well. The authors discuss whether or not the restricted applicability of DCMs can…

More than six years after the election of our current president, the nation is analyzing the effects of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation. Educators are discovering that the plan is flawed, developmentally inappropriate, ill funded, and leaving more students, teachers, and schools behind than ever before. In this article, the…

Against a shifting set of assessment preferences in the US regarding whether educational assessment should continue to be a states rights game or become a federally dominated undertaking, the publication of five first-rate analyses about England's national curriculum assessment (NCA) is particularly propitious. Taken together, these five papers…

This report by the Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent nonprofit organization, examines trends in the achievement of high school students on the state reading/English language arts (ELA) and mathematics tests used for accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In most states, these tests are first administered in grade…

Distance Education has globally become one of the important solutions for increasing admission into the universities, decongesting campuses and efficient utilization of time and space. To ensure the sustainability of the programmes' noble objectives calls for periodic re-evaluation of its modus operandi including the assessment of the perception…

Attention to task-relevant and task-irrelevant information was compared in high- and low-test-anxious children. Results indicated that high-test anxious persons divide their attention in evaluative situations. It is suggested that providing them with task-relevant strategies helps them to cope with the negative effects of test anxiety. (JMB)

The TES investigates the power and influence of the examining boards, and looks at possible changes in the system. (Editor)

Five alternatives to standardized testing of student achievement are described in this brief overview. The first, criterion-referenced tests, are designed to evaluate the accomplishment of specifically stated instructional objectives. Student performance is judged on the basis of the objectives, rather than in comparison to other students taking…

Testing as a means of documenting progress has risen to prominence in the climate of educational crisis which followed the publication of "A Nation At Risk." New developments in testing will determine how some of the current problems now facing postsecondary education are resolved. Among these problems are the following: lack of agreement on what…

The problem of the structure of human abilities is approached within the framework of higher order confirmatory factor analysis. Non-hierarchical models suggested by Thurstone and Guilford are reviewed, and it is concluded that these models fail to give a theoretically and practically useful representation of the organization of human abilities.…

This study was designed to investigate the relationships among three variables - item order, stress of test situation, and test anxiety. (Author/RK)

The problem of the study was to compare the relationship of the grade contract and traditional grading methods to changes in knowledge and attitude during a venereal disease instructional unit. (Author)