This meta-synthesis study examines the use of digital assessment tools in education, focusing on their prevalence, benefits, limitations, and recommendations for effective integration into teaching processes. Based on 41 empirical studies published between December 2012 and January 2023, this study follows the thematic synthesis approach proposed.…

The collection of student feedback is seen as a central strategy to monitor the quality and standards of teaching and learning in higher education institutions. The increasing use of technology to support face-to-face, blended and distance courses has led managers as well as practitioners to become increasingly concerned to identify appropriate…

Evaluating the impact of instructional innovations and coordinating instruction, assessment, and testing present complex tensions. Many evaluation and coordination efforts aim to address these tensions by using the coherence provided by modern cognitive science perspectives on domain-specific learning. This paper introduces an alternative…

One critical issue arising in the educational use of collaborative learning concerns the teacher's difficulty in evaluating the contribution and participation of each student in group-work. This article aims to illustrate and discuss a methodology that enables evaluation of the collaborative learning process based on co-writing in a wiki…

Quality assurance in instructional development demands an exhaustive formative evaluation effort and applied testing. Unfortunately, this process is expensive and requires large numbers of user testers with characteristics similar to the intended audience. This article presents a procedure for increasing the efficiency of quality assurance efforts…

Over the past several decades, a wider range of assessment strategies has gained prominence in classrooms, including complex assessment items such as individual or group projects, student journals and other creative writing tasks, graphic/artistic representations of knowledge, clinical interviews, student presentations and performances, peer- and…

Presents some of the conventional arguments against computer assisted instruction (CAI) in language education and explores humanistic concerns raised in the works of Marshall McLuhan. It is concluded that CAI is introduced into the instructional process before proper research has demonstrated that this method of teaching is not harmful for…

Analysis of the methods used in 25 reports of the evaluation of nursing computer-based learning packages revealed significant research design flaws invalidating many conclusions. Ways to improve evaluation research on the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction were recommended. (Contains 49 references.) (SK)

This discussion of the use of word processing for instruction in developmental writing classes focuses on a study at York College that used IBM PCs and Bank Street Writer software. Problems encountered, including evaluation, assessment, and revising the concept of writing processes, are described. (Author/LRW)

Computer adaptive language testing (CALT) offers a variety of advantages; however, since CALT cannot test the multidimensional nature of language, it does not assess communicative/functional language. This article proposes to replace multiple choice and cloze formats and to apply CALT to live-action simulations. (18 references) (LB)

Reviews current educational software evaluation methods, highlights problems, and describes the York Educational Software Evaluation Scales (YESES), an alternative criterion based model. Panel evaluation used by YESES is explained and YESES results are compared with evaluations from the Educational Products Information Exchange (EPIE) to indicate…

This paper summarizes the literature on research studies in informatics and changes in learning, particularly computer-assisted instruction. Research results themselves are often inconclusive when no allowances are made for different generations of hardware and software or computer types, when the computer is treated as the only variable in the…

This paper describes the evolution of a national research plan for computers and education, an approach which was initiated in the Netherlands in 1983. Two phases can be recognized in the Dutch experience: one from 1984 until 1988 and one from 1989 until 1992. Building upon the experiences of the first phase, research plans for the second phase…

Some special problems associated with evaluating intelligent computer-assisted instruction (ICAI) programs are addressed. This paper intends to describe alternative approaches to the assessment and improvement of such applications and to provide examples of efforts undertaken and shortfalls. Issues discussed stem chiefly from the technical demands…

Discusses the evaluation of educational software designed for use with microcomputers, and emphasizes the need for criteria based on learning theories rather than technological considerations. A review of the literature highlights teacher training in software selection and predictive evaluation, and 49 references are included. (Author/LRW)