This book presents a nontechnical, step-by-step process that shows how to evaluate any 360-degree-feedback instrument intended for management or leadership development. The 360-degree-feedback instruments collect information from different sources about a target manager's performance, and they offer multiple perspectives. The 16 steps in…

Chinese University of Hong Kong students (n=844) each rated a "good" teacher and a "poor" teacher using a Chinese translation of the Students' Evaluations of Educational Quality (SEEQ) instrument. Good teachers were rated more favorably than poor teachers on all SEEQ scales, all SEEQ items were judged to be most important by at…

The first of the National Education Goals states that by the year 2000 all children in America will start school ready to learn. Pressed by demands for greater accountability and enhanced educational performance, states are developing standards and creating new criteria and approaches for assessing achievement. Calls to assess young children are…

This paper offers a method for evaluating protective factors in young children at risk for emotional and/or behavioral disorders. It reviews the development, standardization, validation, and use of a new, nationally standardized measure of within child protective factors, the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA). The DECA evaluates the…

This report presents findings of a review of the current research on the effectiveness of distance education in higher education. Major findings indicate, first, there is a paucity of truly original research dedicated to explaining or predicting phenomena related to distance learning; and, second, although most studies indicate that distance…

Over the past decade, developers of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have changed substantially the mix of item types on the NAEP assessments by decreasing the numbers of multiple-choice questions and increasing the numbers of questions requiring short- or extended-constructed responses. These changes have been motivated…

In response to the growing achievement gap between English Learners (ELs) and non-ELs, standards-based instruction and assessment have been promulgated at the state and federal level. Yet, the consequences of standards-based assessment reforms for ELs have rarely been systematically studied. The work reported here represents the initial study of a…

Previous research on differences in the reliability, validity, and difficulty of essay tests given under different timing conditions has indicated that giving examinees more time to complete an essay may raise their scores to a certain extent, but does not change the meaning of those scores, or the rank ordering of students. There is no evidence…

Developed a motivational distortion scale for the High School Personality Questionnaire. Data from high school students (N=607) showed males and females differed in how they distorted their responses, resulting in the need for two motivational distortion scales. They also differed in characteristics considered to create a favorable impression.…

A refined and extended analysis of variance (ANOVA) approach was used to investigate the pattern of relationships among arithmetic ability; reading ability; and general ability as assessed by teacher ratings and standardized tests, over a three-year period, with 54 educable mentally retarded children, initially 12 years old. (Author)

Scores from elementary school children and adult basic education students on the Adult Informal Reading Test were used to form distribution profiles for a number of tested variables. The profile notion was concluded to be a useful means for displaying the performance trends of published informal reading inventories. (FL)

Experience and research on the appropriateness and reliability of various criteria used in oral language tests are discussed. It is concluded that global marking schemes, which are less detailed, may enable the scorer to better evaluate communicative effectiveness, which includes both linguistic and paralinguistic factors. (MSE)

Reviews a federal court ruling in Florida stating that minimum competency tests must be fair--that is, they must cover material that has actually been taught. Unfair tests used to determine eligibility for graduation violate the equal protection and due process clauses of the Constitution. (Author/WD)

Three cognitive preference instruments were administered to 71 college students and 37 tenth graders to measure cognitive preferences in a natural information processing (learning) situation and to assess convergent validity of cognitive preference construct and instrument validity of conventional tests. Strong evidence of convergent validity was…

Explores the role of diagnostic practices in school psychology. Basic principles related to diagnostic typology and concepts of reliability and validity are reviewed in the context of recent diagnostic decision-making research. The intrusion and eventual reduction of particular errors of consistency and inconsistency in psychodiagnosis are…