Large-scale summative assessment results are typically used for program-evaluation and resource-allocation purposes; however, stakeholders increasingly desire results from large-scale K-12 assessments that inform instruction. Because large-scale summative results are usually delivered after the end of the school year, teacher use of results is…

Formative assessment helps teachers make effective instructional decisions to support students to learn mathematics. Yet, many teachers struggle to effectively use formative assessment to support student learning. Therefore, teacher educators must find ways to support teachers to use formative assessment to inform instruction. This case study…

This study is concerned with how teachers use data about students' ideas in science, elicited from embedded formative assessment probes, to make decisions about next steps in instruction. Since Black and Wiliam's (1998) seminal work on formative assessment, researchers and practitioners alike concerned themselves with formative assessment and its…

While mathematics education researchers have long characterized student performance marked by mathematical explanations, arguments, and justifications as evidence of mathematical reasoning and understanding (e.g. Schoenfeld, 1992), current education policy has begun to move in a similar direction, emphasizing sense making and mathematical…

A study was conducted to describe Ohio secondary vocational education teachers' use of student assessment information in making instructional decisions. The target population for the study was all teachers who taught in secondary vocational education programs in Ohio public schools. A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 393 secondary…

Teachers' conceptions of teaching, and broad approaches to teaching reported by teachers are both commonly found to range from teaching as information transmission, through to teaching as supporting students' own knowledge constructions. Further, conceptions and approaches have been found to correlate, suggesting that there might be some…

Questionnaires completed by 22 student teachers and 22 cooperating teachers showed similar attitudes toward instruction and variations with respect to systematic planning and allocation of time. (RM)

A study examined the clinical influences on the instructional planning decisions made by registered nurses who are lecturers in basic nursing at colleges of advanced education (CAEs) in New South Wales, Australia. Data were collected from a questionnaire that was completed by 98 nurse-academics from 12 of New South Wales' 15 CAEs offering basic…

Teachers' judgments of the aptitudes of hypothetical students and decisions about classroom organization and management were examined using a policy-capturing approach. Teachers' decision policies could not be represented by a single set of common regression weights. Rather, for each judgment, teachers' decision policies were essentially…

A study examined institutional influences on the instructional planning decisions of nurse-academics presenting basic nursing curricula in colleges of advanced education (CAEs) in New South Wales. Data were collected from the following sources: survey of 86 selected nurse-academics from 12 of New South Wales' 15 tertiary institutions running basic…

This study, based on interviews and classroom observation, evaluates what seven fifth-grade teachers in California did one autumn when a controversial new state-approved social studies textbook arrived at their doors. By tracking the teachers' daily curriculum decisions for social studies during the first few months following receipt of the…

Sociological research on teacher decision making in curriculum and instructional development is reviewed. The Institute for Research on Teaching (IRT) shares a number of concerns with this research, including the question of who determines content, the extent to which content covered covaries with social class and sex, and teachers' conceptions of…

Many theories have been proposed to help instructional designers make instructional-strategy decisions, yet it is not clear if these theories are actually used by ID practitioners. This study used a web-survey to examine the design strategies of 113 ID practitioners. The survey asked respondents to rate how frequently they used learning or ID…

A review of research on teacher decision making and planning outlines findings on teachers' judgments and classification of students, development of lesson plans, and decisions made while actively involved in instruction. Findings from a major study on student teaching are discussed as they apply to teacher decision making. Because the classroom…

In July 1986, the Portland (Oregon) Public Schools began a 3-year study of the use of evaluative data in instructional planning and decision making in schools. This report summarizes the second year of the investigation, in which case studies of evaluative data use were conducted in one elementary school (kindergarten through grade 5) and one…