Since educational statistics, which are relatively easy to obtain, can only attempt to measure "quality," this paper asks how quality in higher education is assessed and how educational rankings, which are defined as benchmarks or attempts to measure, contribute to this process. The paper notes that while attempts to rank institutions of…

Problems inherent in the holistic scoring of essay examinations written by limited-English-speakers are examined, particularly in the context of one California state college in which English writing skills, holistically assessed, are required for graduation. These problems include lack of interrater reliability, raters' perceptions of their role,…

The aesthetic judgments of experts (casting directors and high school drama teachers), theater buffs, and novices were compared as they rated the videotaped performances of high school students performing Shakespearean monologues. Focus was on going beyond the determination of between-judge agreement to determine whether there were objective…

The introduction of training packages has focused attention on the quality of assessment in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector on the quality of assessment. For the process of mutual recognition under the Australian Recognition Framework (ARF) to work effectively, there needs to be confidence in assessment decisions made…

Efforts to determine the prevalence of serious emotional disturbance in preschool-aged children have been hampered by the lack of a validated measure. The Preschool and Early Childhood Functional Assessment Scale (PECFAS) is a multi-dimensional measure that assesses the psychosocial functioning of children aged 3-7 years. The concurrent validity…

The appropriateness of the Angoff method (W. H. Angoff, 1971) for setting standards on tests was studied. Evaluators (judges) from California school districts and teacher training institutions reviewed 15 NTE (National Teacher Examinations) Program Specialty Area Tests published by the Educational Testing Service for their appropriateness in…

In 1991 Pennsylvania began implementation of a direct writing assessment at the sixth-grade and ninth-grade levels. A total of 18,758 sixth graders and 16,575 ninth graders wrote a response to 1 of 9 prompts reflecting 3 modes of writing. A six-point holistic scale was used to score the papers, with two readers scoring each paper. A third reader,…

The Functional Ability Rating Scale (FARS) is an instrument developed by local direct service workers in the field of human services to provide an objective measure of an individual's degree of limitation in seven areas of major life activity (MLA). The subject's level of functioning is assessed in Self-Care, Language and Communication, Learning…

This study presents preliminary findings from research developing an instructional quality assessment (IQA) toolkit that could be used to monitor the influence of reform initiatives on students' learning environments and to guide professional development efforts within a school or district. This report focuses specifically on the portion of the…

Anecdotal and conceptual research on assessor training programs in Australia since 1990 was reviewed to determine research priorities for the next 3 years and to identify the research's implications for policymakers and practitioners concerned with training assessors for three settings: formal training, workplace training, and human resource…

A study investigated the teaching characteristics on which medical students, residents, and faculty focus in their assessment of teaching and how they arrive at their assessments of teaching quality. Results indicate the important predictors of ratings were clinical competence, demonstrated sensitivity toward patients and families, and recognition…

As part of a project on assessing deep understanding of subject matter, a study was conducted to assess students' knowledge of history by focusing on essay writing. Reading a provided text was incorporated into the assessment procedure. Ratings from five high school history teachers were compared with those of four English teachers for 85 essays…

Context: Various research studies have examined the question of whether expert or non-expert raters, faculty or students, evaluators or standardized patients, give more reliable and valid summative assessments of performance on Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). Less studied has been the question of whether or not non-faculty…

The primary purpose of this study was the naturalistic assessment of growth in oral English proficiency of Hispanic American limited English proficient (LEP) students in a paired reciprocal learning format. Subjects were fifth-grade students in a summer English-as-a-Second-Language class. Twelve students in a paired learning format and 12 in a…

This study explores the utility of analytic scoring for the TOEFL® Academic Speaking Test (TAST) in providing useful and reliable diagnostic information in three aspects of candidates' performance: delivery, language use, and topic development. G studies were used to investigate the dependability of the analytic scores, the distinctness of the…