This volume of proceedings of the Mid-South Educational Research Association's 23rd annual meeting contains abstracts of discussion sessions, display sessions, symposia, and training sessions. Over 320 abstracts and annotations are included, for sessions that cover the whole range of educational research. Assessment and measurement, educational…

This document found that the California school system has managed to improve its efficiency and performance over the last decade. However, the system is strained to capacity and will have a difficult time meeting upcoming challenges. It must be redesigned to shift the responsibility for improving student achievement to the local level and replace…

To satisfy federal requirements, the National Center for Education Statistics and the Division of Adult Education and Literacy planned a nationally representative household sample survey to assess the literacy skills of the adult population of the United States, to be conducted by the Educational Testing Service with the assistance of Westat, Inc.…

This paper presents an agenda for worldwide change in medical education to meet current and future requirements of society. The first of four sections offers the central arguments for change in medical education noting global patterns in the search for better use of resources for health care, describing a profound shift underway in the present…

Alexander Astin, a pioneer in assessment research, has argued persuasively for building national databases that would permit programs and institutions to share common data and thus compare themselves with peers (1987, 1991). Others have suggested that certain process and outcome data should be collected and shared by disciplinary associations and…

Assessment as conducted at Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC) in Canandaigua (New York) has taken various forms and has been conducted under various names. This publication offers an overview of assessment at the college from a philosophical and historical perspective. In both general and specific terms, the efforts of the college to meet the…

The 1992 annual conference of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) was dedicated to explaining "What Works in Performance Assessment?" This report provides a synopsis of discussions by over 300 policymakers, researchers, and teachers. CRESST Co-Director Eva Baker summed up the present state of…

Large scale assessments of educational progress can be useful tools to judge the effectiveness of educational programs and assessments. This document contains papers presented at the research seminar on this topic held at the Western Australian Institute of Technology in November, 1984. It is the fifth in a series of publications of papers…

The relationships among factors reported on school district (SD) report cards were studied for 121 Tennessee SDs. The report cards provided data on student outcomes (achievement test scores) and SD characteristics. Relationships were studied through linear regression, Pearson product moment correlation, and Guttman's partial correlation. Six…

Conceptual foundations of a process for assessing higher-order thinking are reviewed, and a viable model for carrying out the process is presented. The first section of the paper formulates 21 criteria that should be met by any process adequate to the task. The second section outlines the basic concept of critical thinking on which the paper is…

This paper examines ways in which hardware and software technologies can be used for effective educational assessment. The analysis considers current uses of computer technology in educational assessment and future applications. Computer systems can integrate administration of measurement instruments, presentation of instructional materials,…

The strengths and weaknesses of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are discussed. The NAEP estimates the number of students who are more likely to do certain problems correctly than other students. NAEP reports the numbers, briefly describes the problems, and says that more students need to do these problems correctly. The…

Assessment was studied in two accelerated schools, the Daniel Webster Elementary School in San Francisco (California) and the Fairbanks Elementary School in Springfield (Missouri) from October 1990 to March 1991. The accelerated schools movement for disadvantaged children began in the mid-1980s when researchers at Stanford University (California)…

At the present time the American educational system seems caught in a squeeze play between the historical need for tests that are simple to administer and understand versus the current demand for tests that are respected as thorough measures of the kind of learning needed in a competitive and changing world. Many of the misuses of test data arise…

Teachers in Kentucky are using portfolios to determine strengths and weaknesses of individual students. Consequently, instruction is centered totally around the student. The implementation of portfolios sends the message to students that their first efforts should not be their last. Revision is part of improvement, and students are expected to…