This paper reports the implementation results of the Portuguese School Libraries Evaluation Model, more specifically the results of primary schools self-evaluation of their libraries' reading promotion and information literacy development activities. School libraries that rated their performance as either "Excellent" or "Poor"…

From individual student learning outcomes to full-scale program enhancement, assessment is critical in developing and sustaining leadership education. This chapter will look at assessment techniques and trends spanning from local to global frameworks. International Leadership Association overarching Outcomes and Assessment Guiding Question: "What…

Researchers in nutrition research often use cluster or multistage sampling to gather participants for their studies. These sampling methods often produce violations of the assumption of data independence that most traditional statistics share. Hierarchical linear modeling is a statistical method that can overcome violations of the independence…

Peer reviews are the generally accepted mode of quality assessment in scholarly communities; however, they are rarely used for evaluation at college levels. Over a period of 5 years, we have performed a peer review simulation at a senior level course in molecular genetics at the University of Guelph and have accumulated 393 student peer reviews.…

There is debate in the current literature regarding the permanence of an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis. We undertook a systematic review of the diagnostic stability of ASD to summarise current evidence. A comprehensive search strategy was used to identify studies. Participants were children with ASD. Risk of bias was assessed by…

This paper describes an instrument designed for assessing learning outcomes in data management. In addition to assessment of student learning and ABET outcomes, we have also found the instrument to be effective for determining database placement of incoming information systems (IS) graduate students. Each of these three uses is discussed in this…

Ostracism, the act of being excluded or ignored by another individual or group (Williams, 1997; Williams et al., 2002), is a powerful, pervasive, and complex phenomenon that transcends time and affects individuals throughout their lifespan, with some of the most damaging exclusionary experiences occurring during childhood (Williams, Forgas, &…

Good assessment is part of all good learning communities, and this article provides a useful set of best practices for learning community assessment planning: (1) articulating agreed-upon learning community program goals; (2) identifying the purpose of assessment (e.g., summative or formative); (3) employing qualitative and quantitative assessment…

This article presents two case studies of marginalized youth experimenting with digital music production in flexible education settings. The cases were drawn from a 3-year study of alternative assessment in flexible learning centres for youth who have left formal schooling in Queensland, Australia. The educational issues are framed by reference to…

Dashboard systems are increasingly popular as assessment and performance management tools in higher education. This chapter examines the use of dashboards in student affairs, including examples of key indicators and considerations for developing and implementing these tools. The chapter begins with an overview of the origins of dashboards, from…

The 33rd Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC), held in June 2011 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, included a conference symposium on the topic of "assessment literacy." This event brought together a group of four presenters from different parts of the world, each of whom reported on their recent research in this area. Presentations were…

The norm-referenced evaluation system has been used to grade students, from elementary to post-secondary, for decades. However, the system itself is inherently flawed. Looking at the history of the norm-referenced system and its most famous tool, the Bell Curve, and taking examples from the author's own teaching experience, this paper examines the…

Institutional assessment initiatives can provide opportunities to make the intellectual work of teaching and learning in composition studies more visible. Reciprocally, the scholarship of teaching and learning's situatedness within disciplinary norms and values can enhance institutional assessments, providing a check on the tendency to rely…

Alfie Kohn (http://www.alfiekohn.org) writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. "Time" described him as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." He is the author of 12 books, including "The Schools Our Children Deserve, The Case…

In this rejoinder, Maydeu-Olivares states that, in item response theory (IRT) measurement applications, the application of goodness-of-fit (GOF) methods informs researchers of the discrepancy between the model and the data being fitted (the room for improvement). By routinely reporting the GOF of IRT models, together with the substantive results…