Background: While illustrations are widely used in international test comparisons, very scant research has been conducted on their design and on their influence on student performance. It is not clear how the features of illustration act in combination supporting students' access to the content of items or increasing their interpretation demands.…

Background: With the growing emphasis for educators to use data to inform their practice, little has been done to consider the means by which the educators can acquire the requisite data literacy skills. This article provides a context for why schools of education can and must play an important role in preparing teachers to use data. Purpose: This…

Scores on annual statewide achievement tests can provide parents, students, educators, and policymakers with valuable information--but only if students participate. This issue brief provides the background about recent increases in (and efforts to expand) the number of students opting out of statewide assessments, describes the information and…

The article deals with the problem of quality assessment in the field of higher education in Russia and the USA. The authors describe the solution of the problem in the modern period of reforms and globalization and the authors' analysis of the main quality assessment approaches is presented in the article. [For the complete Volume 13, Number 2…

Most professionals agree that shared beliefs, values, and attitudes that frame interactions and set standards for behavior are important to the success of the staff and students in America's schools. Researchers have documented that student achievement, dropout rates, problem behavior, and teacher retention are related to school climate and few…

Quality in vocational education and training (VET) is a perennial topic of interest, attracting much attention from participants, providers, funders, regulators and public commentators. Quality is as much subjectively in the "eye of the beholder" as it is objectively assessed through hard data, measures and surveys. This paper summarises…

In this chapter, we provide an overview of the design, data-collection, and data-analysis efforts for a digital learning and assessment environment for scientific inquiry / science practices called "Inq-ITS" ("I"nquiry "I"ntelligent "T"utoring "S"ystem; www.inqits.org). We first present a brief…

The purpose of this document is twofold. First, it provides a brief summary of states' Federal Fiscal Year 2015 (FFY2015) IDEA Part B Indicators 1: graduation rates, 2: dropout rates, 13: transition components of the IEP, and 14: post-school outcomes. These Indicators pertain only to students with disabilities and are reported yearly to the Office…

The aim of this study is to identify how far the student centered education approach is applied in the primary, middle and high schools in Düzce. Explanatory design which is one type of mixed research methods and "sequential mixed methods sampling" were used in the study. 685 teachers constitute the research sample of the quantitative…

For more than a decade, states have evaluated school performance largely through a single measure--test scores--and rated schools on whether they improved students' performance in reading or math. The idea was to focus schools' attention on the outcomes that mattered most and to focus states' attention on the schools that needed the most help in…

Hong Kong (HK) and the People's Republic of China (PRC), while sharing historic cultural roots, have different policies for and practices of educational assessment. Student conceptions of assessment function to guide individual behaviour in response to the functions, purposes, and consequences of assessments. A new self-report questionnaire was…

Project-based learning (PBL) is an inquiry-based instructional approach that allows students to gain knowledge and skills by investigating and respond to engaging, complex problems or challenges. For some, PBL may seem like an unnatural fit in PE classrooms. However, this article describes how, with careful and creative planning, PBL can easily…

The focus in this article is on Brazilian education policy, specifically quality assurance and evaluation. The starting point is that quality, measured by means of large-scale assessments, is one of the key discursive justifications for educational change. The article addresses the questions of how quality evaluation became a significant feature…

As the US continues to diversify, methods for accurately assessing human behavior must evolve. This paper offers multicultural research considerations at several stages of the research process for psychological research and consultation. Implications regarding the comparative research framework are discussed and suggestions are offered on how to…

The Undergraduate Teaching Evaluation of General Institutions of Higher Education from 2003 to 2008 was the largest-scale evaluation in Chinese higher education history. It exerted a tremendous influence as a key exploration of quality assurance with Chinese characteristics. Based on existing research, this study combines quantitative and…