Licensure testing programs in the United States (e.g., nursing) face an increasing challenge of measuring the competency of internationally trained candidates, both in relation to their clinical competence and their English language competence. To assist with the latter, professional licensing bodies often adopt well-established and widely…

Alternative education has its own history. Having emerged in the sixties as a response to the social crisis, its goal was primarily to fight increasing bureaucracy and the depersonalization of public education by giving students more freedom and minimal adult supervision. In the eighties, the understanding of "alternative education" narrowed to…

This article examines three typical approaches to alternate assessment for students with significant cognitive disabilities--portfolios, performance assessments, and rating scales. A detailed analysis of common and unique design features of these approaches is provided, including features of each approach that influence the psychometric quality of…

Conducted a meta analysis of studies of procedural modifications of the Angoff method of setting cutoff scores. Findings for 38 studies (113 judges) show that common modifications have produced systematic effects on cutoff scores and the degree of consensus among judges. (SLD)

Examined a procedure for identifying and resolving discrepancies in ratings, focusing on the third rater adjudication procedure used in scoring the Test of Spoken English. Results for 1,446 adult examinees demonstrate that implementing a discrepancy resolution procedure is not sufficient in itself for quality control monitoring. (SLD)

This article presents quantitative evidence that shows that the introduction of a research assessment scheme similar to the proposed Research Quality Framework (RQF) is likely to exacerbate gender inequity in the Australian university sector. It contributes new measures of gender differences in the publications records of Australian academics. It…

Accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is supposed to be a symbol of excellence for business schools. However, the recent increase in the number of accredited schools and the creation of AACSB's "professionally qualified" (PQ) designation for faculty raises some concern in the academic community. Why has…

Today visible proofs of excellence in teaching and learning are increasingly important aspects of institutional branding in higher education (HE). Teaching competence is brought forward as a central aspect of the quality of programmes. Still, the induction of new university teachers is managed in many different ways. Approaches may vary according…

This article seeks to describe briefly various initiatives taken to ease recognition and comparison of formal qualifications across borders in the EU. It takes a political angle, from binding legal instruments such as directives and decisions to policy instruments such as recommendations and voluntary action and covers 27 Member States with very…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to determine possible grouping of similar MBA programmes offered by 45 British and French business schools accredited by the Association of Master Business Administration (AMBA) as of January 2006. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses the statistical co-plot method reported in a similar study of leading…

Purpose: This paper seeks to concentrate on bottom-up approaches in order to promote a European vocational education and training (VET) concept. The overall aim of this article is to demonstrate that sophisticated approaches still have a chance of becoming common practice in European countries. Design/methodology/approach: The centre of the…

This article discusses the implications of a framework to improve matching supply and demand in VET by a policy to improve quality by using anticipation and foresight approaches. Analysis of the Austrian anticipation system identified some basic aspects such as policy. The analysis focused on two issues: the observation and measurement of…

The leap in wireless LAN standards to 802.11n is a WiFi upgrade so new it has not yet garnered final approval from the standards committee. Although that approval will not come until next year (vendors are currently building to a "pre-n" standard), there are plenty of notebook computers out there capable of running 802.11n. That means students…

The authors of this article state that, as literacy coaches negotiate complex tasks in their work with teachers, they assume dual roles. The authors review the evolution of International Reading Association (IRA) standards, paying particular attention to the roles of literacy coach and literacy coordinator. The authors then present data on the…

In recent years, teacher educators in the Netherlands and the USA have developed professional standards for their occupational groups. These standards have been used to identify the professional expertise of teacher educators, to analyse their professional development needs, and to provide assessment mechanisms for accreditation. This article…