This Education Sector Analysis is conducted in the context of potential stability resulting in the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan; and the unforeseen impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis evaluates both the accomplishments and the challenges within the education sector in South Sudan,…

It is nearly impossible today to discuss education without considering testing and evaluation. In the opening article of this volume, professors Baird, Andrich, Hopfenbeck, and Stobart (2017) lay out the challenge of putting learning and teaching first, tracing the development of the science of educational assessment and raising the question…

In this commentary, Mary James highlights two problems she deemed critical during her work exploring the relationships between assessment and learning in theory and practice. First, efforts to improve assessment for learning were not always successful either in improving performance or in other ways. Second, and this may be a reason for the first…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to guide higher education institutions (HEIs) in accomplishing sustainability goals while strengthening their associated systems and processes. Pursuing this goal, this study proposes a conceptual framework for modeling the HEI organizational environment; a set of strategic sustainability actions to drive…

The "consensus view" on the nature of science (NOS) is now outmoded. To help frame an enduring alternative, one should attend first to the "why" of NOS education. Functional, or civic, scientific literacy is foundational. Acknowledging a need for consumers and citizens to assess the reliability of scientific claims in personal…

For well over two decades, the OECD has developed and published a broad range of comparative indicators published yearly in the flagship publication "Education at a Glance." These provide insights into the functioning of education systems, such as the participation and progress through education, the human and financial resources…

The purpose of this study was to use multicategory logit models to test differences between public and private school students. Data from the published results of the Ministry of Education, Guyana for the 2016 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) was used to analyze Public, Private Religious, and Public Secular school performance. For every unit…

How might we know whether our schools or system are set up to optimise learning? How can we find out whether we are getting the most from technology? How can we evaluate our innovation or think through whether our change initiative will bring about its desired results? Teachers and educational leaders who grapple with such questions will find this…

The West Virginia Department of Education has crafted this document to offer policy guidance to teams and Section 504 committees in providing appropriate access for students in statewide assessments; and to assist teachers and schools to work within the framework of federal law and state policies. The guidelines are referenced by West Virginia…

Institutions of higher education face an increasing demand for evidence that they are providing the high-quality educational experience promised in promotional materials. Accrediting bodies require assessment for accountability to ensure continuous improvement. Faculty at Christian higher education institutions join their secular counterparts in…

Purpose: The existence of teachers who think critically and reflect this in their profession is an attribute that should not be abandoned in the process of generating a free, critical thinking, and democratic society. Teachers are the most important role models students have in shaping their behavior in all environments. Therefore, it is necessary…

We review the GIDNA and CDM packages in R for fitting cognitive diagnosis/diagnostic classification models. We first provide a summary of their core capabilities and then use both simulated and real data to compare their functionalities in practice. We found that the most relevant routines in the two packages appear to be more similar than…

The challenge of supporting the development of meaningful learning is prevalent in chemistry education research. One of the core activities used in the learning process is assessments. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how the semantics dimension of Legitimation Code Theory can be a helpful tool to critique the quality of assessments and…

Participation in international large-scale assessments has grown over time with the largest, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), including more than 70 education systems that are economically and educationally diverse. To help accommodate for large achievement differences among participants, in 2009 PISA offered…

A critical issue in educational evaluation is whether evaluations should focus on standardized (summative, often quantitative) or contextualized (formative or often qualitative) evidence. The author of this article advises readers to beware of false dichotomies. The big issue is not whether evaluations should be "standardized" or…