One recent goal of the British Higher Education Funding Council has been to find ways to use technology to cope with the increasing size and diversity of the student population. A development team at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) received a grant to investigate how technology might be used to identify and help students put at risk by…

Little work has been done regarding the overall assessment of quality of computer science graduates at the undergraduate level. This paper reports on a pilot study at the University of Alabama of a prototype computer science outcomes assessment designed to evaluate the breadth of knowledge of computer science seniors. The instrument evaluated two…

The Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) represents one of the most comprehensive pieces of educational reform legislation enacted in the United States. This article describes a series of unintended consequences that are the direct results of inconsistencies both between and within components of the reform. The inconsistencies have made certain…

This document is a collection of four papers dealing with the issues of technology in higher education, distance education, and assessment practices. The first paper, "Integrating the Internet into Distance Education in Accounting at Charles Sturt University: An Assessment of Potential" (Jayne E. Bisman), explores the impact of the…

The Work Keys (trademark) system of the American College Testing program has combined assessments of listening and writing into a single test administration. The Listening and Writing assessment uses independent scorings of the examinee's written responses to audiotaped prompts to assess both listening and writing skills separately. This paper…

A study was conducted to develop a test that is able to capture knowledge of an intuitive nature, such as that acquired through discovery learning. The proposed test format is called the "what-if test." Test items in this format consist of the presentation of a situation. A change in the situation is introduced, and learners have to…

In 1991, the Minnesota Legislature enacted the first legislation in the nation to permit creation of legally and financially independent public schools called charter schools. In February 1996, the Minnesota State Board of Education authorized an 18-month evaluation of Minnesota's charter schools. An evaluation team from the University of…

These guidelines are provided to offer guidance to district and state policy makers and assessment directors concerning some issues of managing the development, administration, and use of performance assessments in large scale assessment programs. The term "performance assessment" is used for assessments that go beyond paper-and-pencil,…

This paper argues that special procedures for constructing assessment tools containing performance assessment tasks are unnecessary and that current test methodology can easily be generalized to complex performance assessment tasks without destroying the desirable characteristics of those tasks. Reasonable statistical requirements for sound…

In July 1993, the Pennsylvania Department of Education revised the regulations guiding state assessment of school districts, educational curriculum, graduation requirements, student assessment, and the planning process that districts use to guide educational delivery. This document describes a year-long, collaborative project, in which the Western…

The Education Improvement Act (EIA) was passed in Tennessee in 1992. It established the Basic Education Program (BEP) as the funding formula used to provide adequate, equitable, and sustainable school funding. The 1997 master plan is consistent with the national Goals 2000 legislation and addresses each of the eight national goals. The plan…

In the late 1980s, state and district policymakers turned their attention from the number of academic courses to the quality of the core academic content being taught in public schools. This report focuses on the development and progress of standards-based reform in 9 states and 25 districts during 1994 and 1995. The states included California,…

This report uses a question-and-answer format to address questions raised by parents, educators, and community members concerning accountability and inclusion of students with disabilities in educational assessment programs. The philosophy underlying the inclusion of all students in educational accountability systems is based on three assumptions:…

This booklet illustrates and compares three important standards (levels of expectation) set for diploma examination writing in Social Studies 30: excellent, proficient, and satisfactory. Sample papers are used to illustrate the scoring criteria for group leaders and markers are presented, along with accompanying commentaries, or rationales, that…

This document summarizes the statewide assessment programs required by the Maryland State Department of Education and the exemptions, excuses, and accommodations permitted for each program. All students are to be included to the fullest extent possible in the mandated state assessments. The accommodations for an individual student are meant to…