College instructors in the United States usually make their own decisions about how to design course exams. Even though summative course exams are well known to be important to student success, we know little about the decision making of instructors when designing course exams. To probe how instructors design exams for introductory biology, we…

As an outgrowth of the accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, districts are increasingly implementing "interim" or "benchmark" assessments. This report investigates various stakeholders' original purposes in adopting interim or benchmark assessments, ensuing implementation efforts, and actual assessment…