Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the use of blind marking to increase the ability of criterion-referenced marking to discriminate students' varied levels of knowledge and skill mastery in a business communication skills course. Design/methodology/approach: The business communication course in this study involved more than 10 teachers and…

This article seeks to explain why, even in norm referenced assessment environments, students and other stakeholders should not be concerned that students who help peers learn are negatively impacting their own assessments. The article opens with a review of assessment options: norm referenced, criterion referenced and ipsative. Next, Social…

According to Every Student Succeeds Act, schools are accountable for the improvement of all children; including those with disabilities or difficulties, recently arrived English language learners (ELs) as well as long-term ELs, and all students for whom English is not their native language. To meet the accountability requirements, it is essential…

Students who double major have higher earnings and are more satisfied with their educational experience in college than those who graduate with a single major. In this study, the authors examine the extent to which a student's experience with academic acceleration programs in high school, specifically successful participation in the Advanced…

Content validation is a crucial, but often neglected, component of good test development. In the present study, content validity evidence was collected to determine the degree to which elements (e.g., grammatical structures, items, picture responses, administration, and scoring instructions) of the Comprehension of Written Grammar (CWG) test are…

This paper recapitulates the aims of the CEFR and highlights three aspects of good practice in exploiting it: firstly, taking as a starting point the real-world language ability that is the aim of all modern language learners; secondly, the exploitation of good descriptors as transparent learning objectives in order to involve and empower the…

Examinations play a central role in the educational system due to the fact that information generated from examinations is used for a variety of purposes. Critical decisions such as selection, placement and determining the instructional effectives of a programme of study all depend on data generated from examinations. Numerous research studies…

Examinations play a central role in the educational system due to the fact that information generated from examinations is used for a variety of purposes. Critical decisions such as selection, placement and determining the instructional effectives of a programme of study all depend on data generated from examinations. Numerous research studies…

The development of valid and reliable strategies to efficiently determine the knowledge landscape of introductory astronomy college students is an effort of great interest to the astronomy education community. This study examines individual item response rates from a widely used conceptual understanding survey, the Test Of Astronomy Standards…

We present findings from an analysis of the Calculus Concept Inventory. Analysis of data from over 1500 students across four institutions indicates that there are deficiencies in the instrument. The analysis showed the data is consistent with a unidimensional model and does not have strong enough reliability for its intended use. This finding…

Background: This study investigates how the criterion-referenced (CR) approach has impacted relationships between goals, classroom practices, and student achievement in English education in Japan from 1994 to the present, a period covering three government-mandated administrations of a national curriculum (Course of Study). No study has…

The criterion-related validity of divergent thinking (DT) tests has been questioned because of relatively low correlations between DT test scores and creative performance. A possible inhibiting factor in previous correlations--heterogeneity of the sample--has been ignored. If groups with different DT profiles are involved in this line of research,…

Student explanations of their mathematical thinking and conclusions have become a greater part of the assessment landscape in recent years. With a sample of 71 4th-grade students at-risk for mathematics learning disabilities, we investigated the relation between student accuracy in comparing the magnitude of fractions and the quality of students'…

Geoscience education researchers have considerable need for criterion-referenced, easy-to-administer, easy-to-score, conceptual surveys for undergraduates taking introductory science survey courses in order for faculty to monitor the learning impacts of innovative teaching. In response, this study establishes the reliability and validity of a…

The present study examined the technical adequacy of maze-selection tasks constructed in 2 different ways: typical versus novel. We selected distractors for each measure systematically based on rules related to the content of the passage and the part of speech of the correct choice. Participants included 262 middle school students who were…