Explores the meaning of understanding and the importance of teaching for understanding. Typical classrooms do not give sufficient presence to thoughtful engagement in understanding performance. How to teach for learning is reviewed, focusing on both teaching and assessment. The need for generative knowledge is discussed. (SLD)

A new procedure is proposed for generating instructionally relevant diagnostic feedback. The approach involves constructing a strong model of student proficiency and then testing whether individual students' observed item-response vectors are consistent with that model. The approach is applied to the Scholastic Assessment Test's verbal reasoning…

Provides a broad perspective on results-based performance measurement (RBPM). It describes the reasons for its growing popularity in government and outlines several of the key elements and considerations that must be included in the implementation of the RBPM system in the public sector. (Author)

Examines criteria for choosing between test-centered and examinee-centered methods of standard setting in empirical terms and in terms of whether the method is consistent with the model of achievement underlying test design and interpretation and the assessment methods being used. Contains 35 references. (Author/SLD)

Proposes four questions that need to be answered if learning is to be taken seriously for more than a season. They include determining what a degree or certification actually means, what the student has learned, how whole institutional communities can find time to address these issues, and who is responsible for educating children. (Author/JDM)

Links the literatures on human abilities and expertise, suggesting that human abilities are a form of developing expertise. Discusses the role of tests in a scheme that regards abilities as developing expertise and presents a model that implies a shift toward practice grounded in the development of knowledge-based expertise in all children.…

In Scotland, one "value added" (VA) indicator of secondary school effectiveness measures students' relative "progress" between Standard and Higher grade in particular subjects. When random nonschool factors affecting students' geography performance were computer-simulated to determine VA fluctuation over 25 years, the…

Describes the Nebraska Mathematics/Science Framework Project which used reflection and collaboration to develop a framework document that has been a significant motivator to enhance mathematics and science education in Nebraska. The end result is an articulated program of mathematics and science that is guiding other state efforts to improve…

Discussion of the practice in the United Kingdom of permitting disabled students to take an alternative form of assessment focuses on implications vis-a-vis assessment principles. It concludes that alternative assessments are compensatory in nature, violate the principles of assessment, and undermine the validity of assessment in higher education.…

This paper proposes a model for computer-based assessment systems that utilizes a step-wise approach to assessment design and implementation, within which the management and assessment of operational, technical, pedagogic, and financial risks are made explicit. The cyclic model has five components: planning, risk analysis and management,…

Demonstrates that the degree to which something is learned is the degree to which valued new and contextualized behaviors are exhibited. Suggests that learning is commonly assessed by matching learner discourse with "what is in the teacher's mind," a process of discursive colonization. (SK)

Nine productive ways of identifying a research topic are listed for the benefit of beginning researchers, and these approaches are illustrated with examples from the field of educational measurement. Having a research agenda helps the beginning investigator in this era in which there is a gold mine of data available. (SLD)

Examines the nature of the "consensus" reflected in educational standards used to orient high-stakes assessment programs and considers the discourse of standards creation and how standards are used to orient assessment development and performance judgments. Discusses the theoretical perspectives of J. Habermas and H. Gadamer. (Author/SLD)

Introduces this theme issue, which examines contemporary dimensions of how accreditation and student outcomes assessment come together in higher education. The accountability movement in education has caused the development of two parallel continuums that have merged in ways the issue's chapters explore. (SLD)

Compares the 2001 and 1992 versions of the Assessment of Catechesis/Religious Education tool, noting specific changes to key concept areas, including: (1) the domain "God" is expanded to "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"; (2) the domain "Church" names its four main attributes, "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic"; and (3) the new category, Church…