This article considers some aspects of the 'what, why and how' of individualising reflective assessments. It is an attempt to understand what works well in a special needs setting but it can also be applied within a mainstream context. The article comprises evidence, in the form of practitioner observations, during the author's work with eight…

In the current scenario of expansion of neo-liberal and market-oriented policies, large-scale assessment has become an increasingly pervasive technology of power. Given their consequences, and the high stakes derived from them, assessment systems put pressure on schools to an extent where their practices and internal policies adapt to the logic of…

Online learning continues to grow at unprecedented rates. However, despite this unprecedented growth, there is little research on model formation and model validation for online learning. Two research-based models were created: eSUCCESS and R2D2/C3PO to help project managers, instructional designers, and developers design and implement online…

Traditional social sector and international development organizations have prioritized measuring the impacts of their work for decades. Understanding the ways in which they are bringing about change or helping people and communities has long been part of the traditional social sector ethos. The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) was founded by…

The author created a project aimed to develop and implement the assessment of working scientifically (WS) skills at Victoria Park Primary School. The author had previously identified a gap in the curriculum coverage and assessment of WS skills and his goal was to address the lack of provision for assessing children's WS skills and raise the…

The authors describe the Analytic Writing Continuum, a scoring system developed by writing assessment experts and the National Writing Project that provides a powerful way for teachers to assess students' writing and see good next steps for writing instruction. They give examples of educators using the AWC both to help students self-evaluate their…

In "Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom, Second Edition," authors David Sousa and Carol Ann Tomlinson examine the basic principles of differentiation in light of what the current research on educational neuroscience reveals. This research offers information and insights that can help…

Given the widespread use of non-experimental (NE) methods for assessing program impacts, there is a strong need to know whether NE approaches yield causally valid results in field settings. In within-study comparison (WSC) designs, the researcher compares treatment effects from an NE with those obtained from a randomized experiment that shares the…

Student learning outcomes assessment has been increasingly used in U.S. higher education institutions over the last 10 years, partly fueled by the recommendation from the Spellings Commission that institutions need to demonstrate more direct evidence of student learning. To respond to the Commission's call, various accountability initiatives have…

Students' affective status, provides an indication of the ways students are likely to act in the future. That is, students' current affective status foreshadows the ways children will act as "grown-ups" long after school is behind them. Clearly, educators should be concerned with the long-term impact of their instructional programs, so…

The purpose of the current two-experiment study was to examine the use of a preference assessment for dimensions of reinforcement to inform an effective token economy arrangement. Three participants diagnosed with developmental disabilities who engaged in negatively reinforced problem behavior participated in this study. During Experiment 1, a…

Background: Individuals with intellectual disability experience the same chronic diseases and conditions as the general population, but are more likely to have physical and psychological co-morbidities, resulting in a higher risk of experiencing pain and having more frequent or severe pain. Method: This position paper aims to highlight the…

This article examines the abandonment of talk-based assessment in favour of written exams, even when writing results in less valid assessment. It points to substantial experience of assessment through talk in English and media studies and points to its potential use in other subjects. It is followed by an example, originally designed by the…

Pressure on evaluators has been investigated recently by surveys in the USA, the UK, Germany, and Switzerland. This study compares the results of those studies regarding pressure on evaluators in different countries. The findings suggest that independence of evaluations does not exist for many respondents. Moreover, the person who commissioned the…

This article provides an overview of the Hofstee standard-setting method and illustrates several situations where the Hofstee method will produce undefined cut scores. The situations where the cut scores will be undefined involve cases where the line segment derived from the Hofstee ratings does not intersect the score distribution curve based on…