The purpose of this study was to develop a testing method for the assessment of various types of writing at the elementary school level that would meet acceptable standards for educational measurement instruments as well as standards of utility and feasibility within a given educational system. The study was conducted within the framework of an…

Ten papers, four general overviews,, and three commentaries delivered at the General Assembly of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in 1983 are presented. The papers include: (1) "Why Join IEA?" (J. P. Keeves); (2) "Research and Policymaking in Education: An International…

Accuracy in the scoring of writing is critical if standardized tasks are to be used in a national assessment scheme. Three approaches to establishing accuracy (i.e., consensus, consistency, and measurement) exist and commonly large-scale assessment programs of primary school writing demonstrate adjacent agreement consensus rates of between 80% and…

The evolution of a British communicative language teaching project at the University of Leicester is chronicled. The project brought together local education agencies, examination boards, advisors, teachers, and researchers to develop three levels of graded instructional objectives across the ability range in grades 7-9 and a standardized test,…