Assessment refers to a broad array of approaches for measuring or evaluating a person's (or group of persons') skills, behaviors, dispositions, or other attributes. Assessments range from standardized tests used in admissions, employee selection, licensure examinations, and domestic and international largescale assessments of cognitive and…

A primary difficulty with music performance assessment is managing its subjective nature. To help improve objectivity, rubrics can be used to develop a set of guidelines for clearly assessing student performance. Moreover, rubrics serve as documentation for student achievement that provides music teachers with a written form of accountability.…

The experience of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards illustrates how issues of assessing the content representativeness of performance assessment can be addressed to ensure validity for certification procedures. Explores the challenges of collecting validation evidence when expert judgments of content are used. (SLD)

This book is designed to help teachers, especially secondary school teachers, create and use performance assessments. The basic concept is that teachers must plan backwards from outcomes of education to shift the paradigm of curriculum-instruction-testing to a new and more fluid design. The book presents a wide variety of assessment approaches…

An online survey investigated the development of alternate assessments for students with disabilities who cannot participate in state and district-wide assessment programs. Responses from all 50 states, American Samoa, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Marshall Islands, Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C. found there is a divergence in who is involved in…

Though performance assessment has its place, it is not always appropriate. Standardized testing is sometimes preferable. The paper describes states' roles in shaping statewide student testing, discusses state assessment to compare schools and school systems, and suggests that improving teaching environments and increasing the value attached to…

Examines reasons why student assessment is undergoing reform, discussing how such reform may affect the nation's schools. The paper describes why school reform is occurring, notes how reform of assessment fits school reform, explains types of assessments and assessment designs, and highlights practical and technical challenges inherent in using…

Increasing emphasis on assessment and concern about assessment techniques have stirred interest in alternative assessment forms, for which evidence is needed about consequences, transfer of performance on specific assessment tests, and assessment fairness. Criteria concerning consequences, fairness, transfer-generalizability, cognitive complexity,…

In July 2001, the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) agreed to the development of assessment instruments and key performance measures for reporting on student skills, knowledge and understandings in primary science. It directed the newly established Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce…