This literature review has been undertaken for the Higher Education Academy (HEA). It explores recent scholarly contributions in the area of assessment and feedback in higher education (HE). As outlined in the HEA's terms of reference for this work, the contents of this review are designed to "help practitioners, policy makers and researchers…

Educators at North Mason wanted a cohesive assessment plan for their district. With help from NWEA, they aligned assessments to appropriate purposes and began focusing on student growth.

Approximately half of students at the community college level leave the institution before degree completion. Community college students are more likely than four-year students to be first-generation students, attend school part-time, be less prepared academically, work full-time, have family responsibilities, and have entered college later in…

Programme evaluation is essential for quality assurance in education. In this paper, we describe our evaluation strategy for the first year of a new medical programme. Although we used multiple methods in the evaluation, the use of the focus group method was core. This paper reports our experiences of focus groups for this purpose. We describe the…

The Academy for Educational Development (AED) sent a research team to Western Kentucky University (WKU) on June 19-20, 2008 to conduct interviews with individuals who play important roles in the university's teacher preparation program (see Appendix A). These interviews, along with additional documentation provided by WKU and identified by the AED…

Instructional strategies aimed at improving achievement of low performing student subgroups in need of support were selected by the District Improvement Advisory Committee, so that WCPSS could exit District Improvement status. Impact of each initiative, which often included teacher training and coaching is examined in this implementation report.…

Measurement in early childhood is an increasingly large-scale endeavor addressing purposes of accountability, program improvement, child outcomes, and intervention decision making for individual children. The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) is a measure relevant to intervention decision making for infants and toddlers, including response to…

A comprehensive assessment system is one in which three types of assessments: summative, benchmark, and formative assessments are routinely administered to all students in K-12 classrooms. The first part of this report summarizes the research on comprehensive assessment systems and provides clarity in terms of how each individual assessment type…

This guide is designed to help districts and schools evaluate reform efforts related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), including School Improvement Grants. It includes practical, how-to tips for conducting program evaluations, whether one takes a "do-it-yourself" approach or seeks outside assistance to evaluate reform…

Within brief experimental analysis, assessment data are used to target interventions for struggling students. This use of assessment data aligns with prevention and early intervention frameworks, but popular measures are limited for this purpose because of issues with measuring improvement in short periods. Our study was a pilot comparison of two…

The current narrative on lifelong learning goes beyond formal education and training, including learning at work, in the family and in the community. Recognition of prior learning is a process of evaluation of those skills and knowledge acquired through life experience, allowing them to be formally recognized by the qualification systems. It is a…

The use of an effective supervision mechanism is crucial between a student and supervisor. The essential knowledge shared and transferred between these two parties must be observed and understood very well in order to ensure that students are produced at good level of quality for future professional knowledge workers. The aim of this study was to…

There is widespread consensus on the need for assessment for learning (AfL) in both university courses and school programmes. Given the prevalence of traditional practices in school physical education where assessment is basic or non-existent, we might ask whether AfL is present in physical education teacher education (PETE) courses. Where it is,…

In this study, we aim to understand the forces driving assessment for learning (AfL) in primary school teaching. By applying a case study design, including the two cases of Norway and Portugal and using mathematics teaching as an example, available policy documents and research reports are analysed to identify the differences and similarities that…

With the passing of Act 82, the state of Pennsylvania has provided school districts with Danielson's Framework as a tool for principals to evaluate teachers. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived professional development needs of Pennsylvania principals as they implemented the new educator effectiveness system. Three hundred…