Exploratory work in the implementation of a portfolio assessment system at an elementary school in Washington State is described. The effectiveness of the assessment strategy is examined in relation to: (1) teacher implementation levels; (2) student demographic variables; and (3) teacher ratings of students' academic and social adjustment levels…

Students' evaluations of teacher effectiveness are explored as a multidimensional construct, emphasizing the Students' Evaluations of Educational Quality (SEEQ) instrument developed by H. W. Marsh (1987). An overview is presented of studies in which Marsh evaluated longitudinal data from an archive of responses to nearly 1 million SEEQ instruments…

Large-scale assessment programs are beginning to design group assessment tasks in which small groups of students collaborate to solve problems or complete projects. However, little is known about the validity of data from group assessment for making inferences about the competence of individual students. The present study compared students'…

In 1990, a study was conducted to determine whether a relationship existed between the attitudes of directors and instructors regarding developmental education and students' ratings of their courses or instructors in remedial and developmental studies. Eleven of Tennessee's 12 community colleges participated in the project. Data were collected…

A study was done to determine the relationship between student satisfaction with the Educational Leadership department graduate study program at Western Michigan University, and the time the students had been in the program. The study used a Student Satisfaction Scale that measured faculty characteristics, student participation in the program,…

A study was conducted at Humber College of Applied Arts and Technology, in Ontario, Canada, to determine student and faculty perceptions of teacher effectiveness. Discussions with 10 nursing students identified 7 factors contributing to teacher effectiveness. A questionnaire, asking respondents to rank these seven characteristics, was distributed…

This study integrated three major areas in understanding children's and young adults' metamemory components, self-efficacy, implicit theories, and performance-predictions. These areas were examined in relation to a picture recall task which was performed children at three age levels. Further, empirically-based "start value" information regarding…

This study examined whether 81 sixth grade students from various socioeconomic and racial backgrounds perceived any disadvantages in being taught by a team of teachers rather than by a single teacher in a self-contained classroom. Critics of team teaching assert that a self-contained classroom provides more stability, security, structure, and…

This report describes a National Workplace Literacy Demonstration project that provided onsite training at participating New Mexico hospitals in job-specific literacy skills necessary for satisfactory job performance. Six courses were offered that integrated language skills with reading, writing, and speaking components--Straight Talk:…

Recent years have seen a new and serious commitment to improving methods of assessing academic performance. Schools, school districts, and states are experimenting with a wide range of assessment alternatives. This paper is about this new commitment to assessment and begins with some background on standardized tests because the rationale for…

When the North Dakota State Department of Education mandated new guidelines for accreditation, each school district in the state was required to develop and implement student performance standards and measurements for every curricular area. This paper describes one district's approach to developing a performance assessment program. Teacher…

This book addresses issues in higher education faculty assessment with emphasis on the role of assessment in fostering development of individual faculty members and their institutions. Part 1 describes the role of faculty assessment with the first chapter outlining inadequacies in current approaches. The second chapter offers a perspective on…

Authentic assessment, as referred to in this book, encompasses meaningful tasks, positive interaction between teachers and students, methods that emphasize higher-order thinking skills, and strategies that allow students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning. Most important, authentic assessment means helping students to apply and…

Science assessment has been included with mathematics and language assessment on the international level since the 1970s. This paper discusses techniques of assessment that have been utilized to measure science process skills. The first section discusses the Assessment Performance Unit, a British project with the aim of developing innovative…

Two studies in Scotland used similar questionnaires to examine relationships between approaches to studying and students' preferences for different types of learning environments. The first study also examined the relationship with students' evaluations of their courses, while the second included reasons for choosing that course (educational…