Explores reasons why students take introductory physics courses at the university regardless of their Advanced Placement (AP) exam performance. Briefly describes the nature of AP physics, the examination format and reporting of scores, and the results of a survey of physics departments regarding their policies towards AP exam scores and placement…

Summarizes a study surveying 153 K-8 teachers to determine their attitudes about standardized achievement tests, tests' usefulness, perceptions of how others view them, and perceptions of how best to prepare students for them. Results indicate that teachers felt negatively about the tests, and many engaged in practices that threatened the tests'…

This paper discusses the referential communication model, offers explanations for communication failure, presents evidence that even older elementary school children have difficulty in detecting ambiguity in messages, argues the need for a standardized test in this area, and surveys work with language-impaired groups and approaches to…

Two perspectives that frame the aspects of the debate on assessment issues are analyzed. The "count-everybody" perspective calls for national standards over which all students would be tested. The "everybody-counts" perspective favors assessments that are developed from multiple perspectives. (MDH)

Presents a history of the question of whether or not to include coursework, versus only traditional exams, as part of the assessment for the British General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and discusses arguments for and against the inclusion of coursework. (MKR)

Performance-based assessment, the umbrella term for various measures to test higher order thinking skills beyond the reach of multiple-choice tests, is the front runner in the race to provide testing alternatives. Problems concerning training, reliability, and cost remain unresolved. A sidebar summarizes testing developments in Arizona,…

Focuses on two implicit assumptions that Carl Rogers saw as dangerous undercurrents in the educational process: that ability to pass examinations is the best criterion for student selection and for judging professional promise, and that evaluation is education and education is evaluation. Opinions are offered by three professionals, each with…

Commends journalist William Raspberry for urging less testing and sorting, more cooperation, and less competition in schools. Congress, under pressure to force schools to produce results and get rewards, should heed this columnist's advice. Although school boards are resisting an AASA measure (H.R. 3320) to reform local and state education…

A study to develop concordance tables between the new enhanced American College Testing Program (ACT) assessment and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), to establish new score relationships, is described. The scaling sample consisted of 40,051 students taking both tests and submitting them to 14 large universities. (Author/MSE)

Four years of experience with an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) following an eight-week surgical clerkship (n=356 students) are reported, including data on mean student performance across years, reliability coefficients, and generalizability. Implications for improvement and development of OSCE are discussed. (Author/MSE)

A study using five Southern Illinois University senior medical school classes (n=350 students) investigated whether having a standardized patient simulate a case repeatedly in postclerkship medical student evaluation affects the measure's reliability. Results suggest that repeated simulation had little or no effect on intercase reliability of…

When test data from different sources conflict, the truth is often found somewhere in the middle. As this article shows, reports of achievement trends can be heavily influenced by the particular definition of achievement represented and by testing conditions. Recent progress in science and mathematics must be carefully nurtured in the nineties.…

Although the American College Testing Program (ACT) items were somewhat changed in 1989-90 and are not directly comparable with the previous year's scores, some see stability in the new scores. Improved minority group performance is attributed in part to greater participation in college-preparatory classes. (MSE)

Besides endorsing a children's bill of rights, teachers at this year's annual National Education Association meeting urged a moratorium on most standardized testing, opposed a federally mandated national test, urged teacher study programs to include courses promoting multicultural education, agreed to a many-sided analysis of Christopher…

Portfolios allow students to maintain collections of their work as indicators of their academic success. Portfolios are being promoted as an alternative to standardized testing throughout the curriculum, particularly in language arts. Portfolio assessment offers educators advantages both in philosophical congruence and instructional strategy. (SM)