Race to the Top States offer a wide range of supports for local educational agency (LEA) implementation of one of four school intervention models. Some States allocate resources on a regional basis, while others coordinate resources at the State level. Certain States also use data tools to measure district needs, capacity and progress on key…

The aim of this paper was to develop and test two equivalent forms of the Assessment Battery for Communication (ABaCo), a tool for evaluating pragmatic abilities in patients with neuropsychological and psychiatric disorders. The equivalent forms were created using the data from a sample of 390 children, then tested in a sample of 30 patients with…

Aimhigher was discontinued on 31 July 2011. This paper reviews the literature analysing its contribution to widening participation to higher education in the UK. Successes of Aimhigher are considered alongside its challenges; particularly the necessity to situate policy within the diverse demands of 42 areas covering England. These issues are…

Historically, intervention programmes in intellectual and developmental disabilities have targeted the individual's special needs independent of the family and environmental context. This trend has been changing over the past two decades. This paper presents a literature review on changing trends in family support and the development of family…

This study explored the consistency and difference of teacher-, student self- and peer-assessment in the context of Web-based portfolio assessment. Participants were 72 senior high school students enrolled in a computer application course. Through the assessment system, the students performed portfolio creation, inspection, self- and…

This paper discusses the impact of a specially developed assessment and feedback system implemented within a second year industrial design module at Coventry University, UK. The "Assessment Buddy" system was developed in response to the need for a successful assessment and feedback method that could cope with the complexities of a…

Recent federal legislation has created strong incentives for states to adopt principal evaluation systems, many of which include new measures of principal effectiveness such as estimates of student growth and changes in school climate. Yet, there has been little research on principal evaluation systems and no state-by-state analysis of the…

The availability of reliable evidence for teaching practices after professional development is limited across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, making the identification of professional development "best practices" and effective models for change difficult. We aimed to determine the extent to which…

The absence of universally accepted definitions for direct and indirect assessment motivates the purpose of this article: to offer definitions that are literature-based and theoretically driven, meeting K. Lewin's (1945) dictum that, "There is nothing so practical as a good theory" (p. 129). The authors synthesize the literature to…

This study examines teachers' intention to engage in School Based Assessment (SBA) in secondary schools of Sri Lanka, by utilising Ajzen's (1985) Theory of Planned Behaviour. Multiple regression analysis was employed for data analysis. Given the recent attention on curricular reforms in many countries, this study contributes to the limited…

The use of appropriate Educational Simulation systems (software and hardware for learning purposes) may contribute to the application of the "Learning by Doing" (LbD) paradigm in classroom, thus helping the students to assimilate the theoretical concepts of a subject and acquire certain pre-defined competencies in a more didactical way.…

With the widespread use of the Internet, adopting e-learning systems in courses has gradually become more and more important in universities in Taiwan. However, because of limitations of teachers' time, selecting suitable online IT tools has become very important. This study proposes an analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-multi-choice goal…

Most postgraduate programmes, that have research components, require students to take at least one course of research statistics. Not all postgraduate programmes are science based, there are a significant number of postgraduate students who are from the social sciences that will be taking statistics courses, as they try to complete their…

Students' reflective essay writing can be stimulated by the formative assessments provided to them by their teachers. Such assessments contain information about the quality of students' reflective writings and offer suggestions for improvement. Despite the importance of formatively assessing students' reflective writings in teacher education…

The purpose of this study was to examine how instrumental music educator skills are being evaluated in current undergraduate programs. While accrediting organizations mandate certain elements of these programs, they provide limited guidance on what evaluative approaches should be used. Instrumental music teacher educators in the College Music…