At the end of a lecturing period examinations are used to take a snapshot of the level of knowledge of a student. It is essential that this snapshot be taken at the right moment. Particularly when a student fails, it is important to make sure that it is because his level of knowledge is not adequate, not because, for example, he had a severe…

Standards-based reform has been America's premier education strategy for more than a decade. Its many backers seek stronger school and student performance and more equal opportunities for children, especially disadvantaged youngsters. Education is attracting more high-level attention and political energy than ever before. Yet standards-based…

The higher education sector is increasingly reliant upon casual ("sessional") staff for teaching and marking purposes. While this practice has been little examined in the past, over the last few years increasing attention has been paid to the quality of marking, mainly because students and academic staff alike are becoming increasingly…

Technology has made a significant impact on assessment, including its use to automate assignment submission. On-line assignment submission, marking, and return were introduced into a fourth-year engineering management unit for the first time, and a formal evaluation was undertaken to assess student perceptions of this new development. Nearly all…

The validity of the Norwegian university grading standard has been called into serious question. The implicit standards used for assessing exams and the reliability of that understanding among examiners and psychology students were investigated in three studies. Studies 1 and 2 investigated the implicit standards that examiners used when assessing…

A key challenge for management instructors using graded groupwork with students is to find ways to maximize student learning from group projects while ensuring fair and accurate assessment methods. This article presents the Groupwork Peer-Evaluation Protocol (GPEP) that enables the assessment of individual contributions to graded student…

This book follows master educator Elizabeth (Betty) Jones as she teaches an introductory course in early childhood education. She actively engages the students, encouraging them to make decisions, ask questions, and engage in collaborative problem solving--herself modeling the behaviors that should be practiced by adults working with young…

Although there is disagreement among educators about performance standards and their relationship to student performance, performance standards are central to the reforms under way in many states and large school districts, including Philadelphia. They are also mentioned explicitly in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act and in the re-authorization…

A sound performance evaluation system uses a multitude of assessment methods to gather information and data about the performance of an individual. Four models are described that have been used with multiple assessment results to make decisions about performance. In a compensatory model, weak performance on one measure or attribute can be traded…

The most useful method of item selection for making pass-fail decisions with a Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT) was studied. Medical technology students (n=86) took a computer adaptive test in which items were targeted to the ability of the examinee. The adaptive algorithm that selected items and estimated person measures used the Rasch model and…

The contrasting groups method is one of many possible methods for setting passing scores. The most commonly used method is probably that developed by W. H. Angoff (1971), but it has been suggested that the Angoff method may not be appropriate for many standard setting applications in education. The contrasting groups method is explored as an…

Under the California Community Colleges' (CCC's) current grading policy, a symbol of W is permitted to designate that a student withdrew from a course before a locally determined drop deadline. There is no allowance for a symbol, however, that accurately denotes that students have ceased to participate at a point in the term beyond which they are…

A national survey of trends in college grading practices was conducted in 1992 by gathering data from college registrars. The survey instrument, which had been field-tested, was sent to registrars at 2,302 institutions and responses were gathered from 1,601 (70 percent response rate). Among the general findings were the following: (1) 97 percent…

This research project was designed to help the faculty at a southwestern, urban elementary school better understand what parents thought about the school's alternative assessment methods and narrative reporting to communicate with parents. Assessment methods were defined as the ways teachers learn about students' understandings, and communication…

A study examined 78 experienced Northwest Ohio elementary school teachers' orientation toward whole language, teacher-made, and state-mandated tests. The teachers also described their grading policies and distributions and their attitudes toward basal readers and phonics skills. The majority (56%) labeled themselves as over 50% "whole…