Reviews evidence regarding the content, standards, and use validity of the International Adult Literacy Survey's performance scales and self-assessment scales. Concludes that there are serious questions about the performance scales and that self-assessment data may help identify adults who believe they have poor literacy skills. Suggests that…

In the field of EFL, effective language evaluation is receiving more and more attention. However, in many Chinese EFL situations, the evaluation of language development is still considered to be product-oriented. It is the purpose of this article to examine an evaluation system of an English language program offered by a university in Yunnan…

Impact evaluations of school-based management (SBM) programs, or any other kind of program, are important because they can demonstrate whether or not the program has accomplished its objectives. Furthermore, these evaluations can identify ways to improve the design of the program. These evaluations can also make successful interventions…

"Group is good, and group is good for curing all social ills" was the cynical observation of one of the lecturers in this study. Her comment reflects the uneasiness of lecturers at tertiary institutions with the notion that the educational advantages of group assessments far outweigh the disadvantages, and that such an approach promotes…

Purpose: This paper aims to report the process and outcomes of a case study which introduced internal evaluation procedures into academic departments of a university in Iran. The purpose of the study was to identify what benefits could arise from using internal evaluation, and what obstacles existed to its successful introduction.…

"How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement" estimates the effects on student achievement of attending a New York City charter school rather than a traditional public school and investigates the characteristics of charter schools associated with the most positive effects on achievement. Because the report relies on an…

The current study examines the views of experts in the science of mental abilities about the primacy and uniqueness of "g" and the social implications of ability testing, and compares their responses to the views of a group of non-expert psychologists. Results indicate expert consensus that "g" is an important, non-trivial determinant (or at least…

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, faculty members and student affairs educators often believe that the answers they seek about assessment are secrets kept by an all-knowing, powerful person. If they can just find the Wizard of Assessment and be granted the secret assessment formula, all will be well. The student affairs educators at California…

Purpose--The purpose of this research is to examine participants' response rate on dual style training course evaluation forms. These combine structured and open-ended formats. Pencil and paper forms have a long history of use by trainers in business and commerce and more recently in education. Research methods texts tend to have neglected the…

Promoting ethical practices in assessment is considered to be a very important goal of the organizations involved in assessment. Codes are intended to increase the awareness of ethical practice among their memberships and to promote ethical uses of assessment in various contexts such as teaching, counseling, evaluation, and research. The level of…

American national standards for the evaluation of educational programs were developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation in 1994. This paper describes the Joint Committee's standard setting process. The Joint Committee is a coalition of professional organizations concerned with the quality of evaluations in education.…

A study examined the relationship of the respondent and averaged associate ratings on the Listening Practices Feedback Report (LPFR). As part of LPFR listening training sessions, LPFR respondent and associate(s) scores were gathered from several major companies and organizations. Each subject completed an LPFR on his/her own listening behavior and…

Like many countries, Norway in the 1980s decentralized many government functions including public education. However, there was concern over maintaining common national education goals and evaluating schools' performance. Decentralization in schools also included school-based evaluation, evaluation done by and in the school. Three studies of…

Since educational criticism aims to reeducate teachers' perception in order to improve or illuminate educational practices, the audience's role is particularly important. In many ways, the intended audience determines the evidence presented. The evaluator must write the criticism in language which is meaningful to the audience (for example…

This chapter addresses the problems encountered in the formative evaluation of instructional development projects and the instructional development process. Three types of formative evaluation--component, convergent, and contextual--are distinguished, and the consequences of using the wrong type of evaluation in a particular situation or project…