Your Search Results(showing 43)

    • Examinations & assessmentx
    • Philosophy & theory of education
      January 2008

      Universities

      The Recovery of an Idea

      by Graham, Gordon, A01

      Research assessment exercises, teaching quality assessment, line management, staff appraisal, student course evaluation, modularization, student fees these are all names of innovations (and problems) in modern British universities. How far do they...

    • Examinations & assessment
      January 1992

      Research and Education Reform

      Roles for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement

      by Richard C. Atkinson and Gregg B. Jackson, Editors; Committee on the Federal Role in Education Research, National Research Council

      The Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education has a mandate for expanding knowledge of teaching and learning and for improving education in this country. This book focuses on how OERI can better fulfill that mission in light of what is known about why prior education reforms have often failed, what is needed to enhance the effectiveness of such efforts, and what education research and development can contribute to better schools. The history, mission, governance, organization, functions, operations, and budgets of OERI are analyzed. Recommendations are made for restructuring OERI, expanding funding, involving scholars from many fields, and engaging teachers and school principals in improvement efforts.

    • Examinations & assessment
      July 2000

      Designing a Market Basket for NAEP

      Summary of a Workshop

      by Pasquale J. DeVito and Judith A. Koenig; Editors; Committee on NAEP Reporting Practices: Investigating District-Level and Market-Basket Reporting; National Research Council

      At the request of the U.S. Department of Education, the National Research Council (NRC) established the Committee on NAEP Reporting Practices to examine the feasibility and potential impact of district-level and market-basket reporting practices. As part of its charge, the committee sponsored a workshop in February 2000 to gather information on issues related to market-basket reporting for the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Designing a Market Basket for NAEP: Summary of a Workshop explores with various stakeholders their interest in and perceptions regarding the desirability, feasibility, and potential impact of market-basket reporting for the NAEP. The market-basket concept is based on the idea that a relatively limited set of items can represent some larger construct. The general idea of a NAEP market basket is based on an image of a collection of test questions representative of some larger content domain and an easily understood index to summarize performance on the items.

    • Examinations & assessment
      December 2000

      Testing English-Language Learners in U.S. Schools

      Report and Workshop Summary

      by Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity, Kenji Hakuta and Alexandra Beatty, Editors, National Research Council

      The Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity was created under the auspices of the National Research Council (NRC), and specifically under the oversight of the Board on Testing and Assessment (BOTA). The committee's charge is to explore the challenges that face U.S. schools as they work to achieve the related goals of academic excellence and equity for all students. This report provides not only the summary of a workshop held by the forum on the testing of English-language learners (students learning English as an additional language) in U.S. schools, but also a report on the committee's conclusions derived from that workshop and from subsequent deliberations.

    • Examinations & assessment
      September 2001

      Knowing What Students Know

      The Science and Design of Educational Assessment

      by Committee on the Foundations of Assessment, James W. Pellegrino, Naomi Chudowsky, and Robert Glaser, editors, Board on Testing and Assessment, Center for Education, National Research Council

      Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.

    • Examinations & assessment
      February 2001

      NAEP Reporting Practices

      Investigating District-Level and Market-Basket Reporting

      by Pasquale J. DeVito and Judith A. Koenig, Editors; Committee on NAEP Reporting Practices, Board on Testing and Assessment, National Research Council

      At the request of the Department of Education, the National Research Council formed the Committee on NAEP Reporting Practices to address questions about the desirability, feasibility, and potential impact of implementing these reporting practices. The committee developed study questions designed to address issues surrounding district-level and market-basket reporting.

    • Examinations & assessment
      September 2004

      Keeping Score for All

      The Effects of Inclusion and Accommodation Policies on Large-Scale Educational Assessment

      by Judith Anderson Koenig and Lyle F. Bachman, Editors, Committee on Participation of English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities in NAEP and Other Large-Scale Assessments, National Research Council

      U.S. public schools are responsible for educating large numbers of English language learners and students with disabilities. This book considers policies for including students with disabilities and English language learners in assessment programs. It also examines the research findings on testing accommodations and their effect on test performance. Keeping Score for All discusses the comparability of states’ policies with each other and with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) policies and explores the impact of these differences on the interpretations of NAEP results. The book presents a critical review of the research literature and makes suggestions for future research to evaluate the validity of test scores obtained under accommodated conditions. The book concludes by proposing a new framework for conceptualizing accommodations. This framework would be useful both for policymakers, test designers, and practitioners in determining appropriate accommodations for specific assessments and for researchers in planning validity studies.

    • Examinations & assessment
      April 2002

      Achieving High Educational Standards for All

      Conference Summary

      by Timothy Ready, Christopher Edley, Jr., and Catherine E. Snow, Editors, National Research Council

      This volume summarizes a range of scientific perspectives on the important goal of achieving high educational standards for all students. Based on a conference held at the request of the U.S. Department of Education, it addresses three questions: What progress has been made in advancing the education of minority and disadvantaged students since the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision nearly 50 years ago? What does research say about the reasons of successes and failures? What are some of the strategies and practices that hold the promise of producing continued improvements? The volume draws on the conclusions of a number of important recent NRC reports, including How People Learn, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, Eager to Learn, and From Neurons to Neighborhoods, among others. It includes an overview of the conference presentations and discussions, the perspectives of the two co-moderators, and a set of background papers on more detailed issues.

    • Examinations & assessment
      May 2002

      Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement

      by Board on International Comparative Studies in Education, Andrew C. Porter and Adam Gamoran, Editors, National Research Council

      In November 2000, the Board on International Comparative Studies in Education (BICSE) held a symposium to draw on the wealth of experience gathered over a four--decade period, to evaluate improvement in the quality of the methodologies used in international studies, and to identify the most pressing methodological issues that remain to be solved. Since 1960, the United States has participated in 15 large--scale cross--national education surveys. The most assessed subjects have been science and mathematics through reading comprehension, geography, nonverbal reasoning, literature, French, English as a foreign language, civic education, history, computers in education, primary education, and second--language acquisition. The papers prepared for this symposium and discussions of those papers make up the volume, representing the most up--to--date and comprehensive assessment of methodological strengths and weaknesses of international comparative studies of student achievement. These papers answer the following questions: (1) What is the methodological quality of the most recent international surveys of student achievement? How authoritative are the results? (2) Has the methodological quality of international achievement studies improved over the past 40 years? and (3) What are promising opportunities for future improvement?

    • Examinations & assessment
      July 2002

      Performance Assessments for Adult Education: Exploring the Measurement Issues

      Report of a Workshop

      by Committee for the Workshop on Alternatives for Assessing Adult Education and Literacy Programs, Robert J. Mislevy and Kaeli T. Knowles, Editors, National Research Council

      In the United States, the nomenclature of adult education includes adult literacy, adult secondary education, and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) services provided to undereducated and limited English proficient adults. Those receiving adult education services have diverse reasons for seeking additional education. With the passage of the WIA, the assessment of adult education students became mandatory-regardless of their reasons for seeking services. The law does allow the states and local programs flexibility in selecting the most appropriate assessment for the student. The purpose of the NRC's workshop was to explore issues related to efforts to measure learning gains in adult basic education programs, with a focus on performance-based assessments.

    • Examinations & assessment
      September 2002

      Reporting Test Results for Students with Disabilities and English-Language Learners

      Summary of a Workshop

      by Judith Anderson Koenig, Editor, National Research Council

      At the request of the U.S. Department of Education, the National Research Council's (NRC) Board on Testing and Assessment (BOTA) convened a workshop on reporting test results for individuals who receive accommodations during large-scale assessments. The workshop brought together representatives from state assessment offices, individuals familiar with testing students with disabilities and English-language learners, and measurement experts to discuss the policy, measurement, and score use considerations associated with testing students with special needs.

    • Examinations & assessment
      April 2000

      Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards

      A Guide for Teaching and Learning

      by Steve Olson and Susan Loucks-Horsley, Editors; Committee on the Development of an Addendum to the National Science Education Standards on Scientific Inquiry; National Research Council

      Humans, especially children, are naturally curious. Yet, people often balk at the thought of learning science--the "eyes glazed over" syndrome. Teachers may find teaching science a major challenge in an era when science ranges from the hardly imaginable quark to the distant, blazing quasar. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards is the book that educators have been waiting for--a practical guide to teaching inquiry and teaching through inquiry, as recommended by the National Science Education Standards. This will be an important resource for educators who must help school boards, parents, and teachers understand "why we can't teach the way we used to." "Inquiry" refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and in which students grasp science knowledge and the methods by which that knowledge is produced. This book explains and illustrates how inquiry helps students learn science content, master how to do science, and understand the nature of science. This book explores the dimensions of teaching and learning science as inquiry for K-12 students across a range of science topics. Detailed examples help clarify when teachers should use the inquiry-based approach and how much structure, guidance, and coaching they should provide. The book dispels myths that may have discouraged educators from the inquiry-based approach and illuminates the subtle interplay between concepts, processes, and science as it is experienced in the classroom. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards shows how to bring the standards to life, with features such as classroom vignettes exploring different kinds of inquiries for elementary, middle, and high school and Frequently Asked Questions for teachers, responding to common concerns such as obtaining teaching supplies. Turning to assessment, the committee discusses why assessment is important, looks at existing schemes and formats, and addresses how to involve students in assessing their own learning achievements. In addition, this book discusses administrative assistance, communication with parents, appropriate teacher evaluation, and other avenues to promoting and supporting this new teaching paradigm.

    • Examinations & assessment
      October 1999

      Testing, Teaching, and Learning

      A Guide for States and School Districts

      by Richard F. Elmore and Robert Rothman, Editors; Committee on Title I Testing and Assessment, National Research Council

      State education departments and school districts face an important challenge in implementing a new law that requires disadvantaged students to be held to the same standards as other students. The new requirements come from provisions of the 1994 reauthorization of Title I, the largest federal effort in precollegiate education, which provides aid to "level the field" for disadvantaged students. Testing, Teaching, and Learning is written to help states and school districts comply with the new law, offering guidance for designing and implementing assessment and accountability systems. This book examines standards-based education reform and reviews the research on student assessment, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students covered by Title I. With examples of states and districts that have track records in new systems, the committee develops a practical "decision framework" for education officials. The book explores how best to design assessment and accountability systems that support high levels of student learning and to work toward continuous improvement. Testing, Teaching, and Learning will be an important tool for all involved in educating disadvantaged studentsâ€"state and local administrators and classroom teachers.

    • Examinations & assessment
      July 1999

      Myths and Tradeoffs

      The Role of Tests in Undergraduate Admissions

      by Alexandra Beatty, M. R. C. Greenwood, and Robert L. Linn, Editors; Steering Committee for the Workshop on Higher Education Admissions, National Research Council

      More than 8 million students enrolled in 4-year, degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States in 1996. The multifaceted system through which these students applied to and were selected by the approximately 2,240 institutions in which they enrolled is complex, to say the least; for students, parents, and advisers, it is often stressful and sometimes bewildering. This process raises important questions about the social goals that underlie the sorting of students, and it has been the subject of considerable controversy. The role of standardized tests in this sorting process has been one of the principal flashpoints in discussions of its fairness. Tests have been cited as the chief evidence of unfairness in lawsuits over admissions decisions, criticized as biased against minorities and women, and blamed for the fierce competitiveness of the process. Yet tests have also been praised for their value in providing a common yardstick for comparing students from diverse schools with different grading standards. Myths and Tradeoffs identifies and corrects some persistent myths about standardized admissions tests and highlight some of the specific tradeoffs that decisions about the uses of tests entail; presents conclusions and recommendations about the role of tests in college admissions; and lays out several issues about which information would clearly help decision makers, but about which the existing data are either insufficient or need synthesis and interpretation. This report will benefit a broad audience of college and university officials, state and other officials and lawmakers, and others who are wrestling with decisions about admissions policies, definitions of merit, legal actions, and other issues.

    • Examinations & assessment
      January 2000

      Reporting District-Level NAEP Data

      Summary of a Workshop

      by Pasquale J. DeVito and Judith A. Koenig, Editors; Committee on NAEP Reporting Practices: Investigating District-Level and Market-Basket Reporting, National Research Council

      The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) has earned a reputation as one of the nation's best measures of student achievement in key subject areas. Since its inception in 1969, NAEP has summarized academic performance for the nation as a whole and, beginning in 1990, for the individual states. Increasingly, NAEP results get the attention of the press, the public, and policy makers. With this increasing prominence have come calls for reporting NAEP results below the national and state levels. Some education leaders argue that NAEP can provide important and useful information to local educators and policy makers. They want NAEP to serve as a district-level indicator of educational progress and call for NAEP results to be summarized at the school district level. Reporting District-Level NAEP Data explores with various stakeholders their interest in and perceptions regarding the likely impacts of district level reporting.

    • Examinations & assessment
      October 2011

      Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education

      by Michael Hout and Stuart W. Elliott, Editors; Committee on Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Public Education; National Research Council

      In recent years there have been increasing efforts to use accountability systems based on large-scale tests of students as a mechanism for improving student achievement. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a prominent example of such an effort, but it is only the continuation of a steady trend toward greater test-based accountability in education that has been going on for decades. Over time, such accountability systems included ever-stronger incentives to motivate school administrators, teachers, and students to perform better. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education reviews and synthesizes relevant research from economics, psychology, education, and related fields about how incentives work in educational accountability systems. The book helps identify circumstances in which test-based incentives may have a positive or a negative impact on student learning and offers recommendations for how to improve current test-based accountability policies. The most important directions for further research are also highlighted. For the first time, research and theory on incentives from the fields of economics, psychology, and educational measurement have all been pulled together and synthesized. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education will inform people about the motivation of educators and students and inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems. Education researchers, K-12 school administrators and teachers, as well as graduate students studying education policy and educational measurement will use this book to learn more about the motivation of educators and students. Education policy makers at all levels of government will rely on this book to inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems.

    • Examinations & assessment
      September 2011

      Assessing 21st Century Skills

      Summary of a Workshop

      by Judith Anderson Koenig, Rapporteur; National Research Council

      The routine jobs of yesterday are being replaced by technology and/or shipped off-shore. In their place, job categories that require knowledge management, abstract reasoning, and personal services seem to be growing. The modern workplace requires workers to have broad cognitive and affective skills. Often referred to as "21st century skills," these skills include being able to solve complex problems, to think critically about tasks, to effectively communicate with people from a variety of different cultures and using a variety of different techniques, to work in collaboration with others, to adapt to rapidly changing environments and conditions for performing tasks, to effectively manage one's work, and to acquire new skills and information on one's own. The National Research Council (NRC) has convened two prior workshops on the topic of 21st century skills. The first, held in 2007, was designed to examine research on the skills required for the 21st century workplace and the extent to which they are meaningfully different from earlier eras and require corresponding changes in educational experiences. The second workshop, held in 2009, was designed to explore demand for these types of skills, consider intersections between science education reform goals and 21st century skills, examine models of high-quality science instruction that may develop the skills, and consider science teacher readiness for 21st century skills. The third workshop was intended to delve more deeply into the topic of assessment. The goal for this workshop was to capitalize on the prior efforts and explore strategies for assessing the five skills identified earlier. The Committee on the Assessment of 21st Century Skills was asked to organize a workshop that reviewed the assessments and related research for each of the five skills identified at the previous workshops, with special attention to recent developments in technology-enabled assessment of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In designing the workshop, the committee collapsed the five skills into three broad clusters as shown below: Cognitive skills: nonroutine problem solving, critical thinking, systems thinking Interpersonal skills: complex communication, social skills, team-work, cultural sensitivity, dealing with diversity Intrapersonal skills: self-management, time management, self-development, self-regulation, adaptability, executive functioning Assessing 21st Century Skills provides an integrated summary of the presentations and discussions from both parts of the third workshop.

    • Examinations & assessment
      January 2010

      Getting Value Out of Value-Added

      Report of a Workshop

      by Henry Braun, Naomi Chudowsky, and Judith Koenig, Editors; Committee on Value-Added Methodology for Instructional Improvement, Program Evaluation, and Accountability; National Research Council and National Academy of Education

      Value-added methods refer to efforts to estimate the relative contributions of specific teachers, schools, or programs to student test performance. In recent years, these methods have attracted considerable attention because of their potential applicability for educational accountability, teacher pay-for-performance systems, school and teacher improvement, program evaluation, and research. Value-added methods involve complex statistical models applied to test data of varying quality. Accordingly, there are many technical challenges to ascertaining the degree to which the output of these models provides the desired estimates. Despite a substantial amount of research over the last decade and a half, overcoming these challenges has proven to be very difficult, and many questions remain unanswered--at a time when there is strong interest in implementing value-added models in a variety of settings. The National Research Council and the National Academy of Education held a workshop, summarized in this volume, to help identify areas of emerging consensus and areas of disagreement regarding appropriate uses of value-added methods, in an effort to provide research-based guidance to policy makers who are facing decisions about whether to proceed in this direction.

    • Examinations & assessment
      July 2010

      Best Practices for State Assessment Systems Part I

      Summary of a Workshop

      by Alexandra Beatty, Rapporteur; Committee on Best Practices for State Assessment Systems: Improving Assessment While Revisiting Standards; National Research Council

      Educators and policy makers in the United States have relied on tests to measure educational progress for more than 150 years. During the twentieth century, technical advances, such as machines for automatic scoring and computer-based scoring and reporting, have supported states in a growing reliance on standardized tests for statewide accountability. State assessment data have been cited as evidence for claims about many achievements of public education, and the tests have also been blamed for significant failings. As standards come under new scrutiny, so, too, do the assessments that measure their results. The goal for this workshop, the first of two, was to collect information and perspectives on assessment that could be of use to state officials and others as they review current assessment practices and consider improvements.

    • Examinations & assessment
      December 2010

      State Assessment Systems

      Exploring Best Practices and Innovations: Summary of Two Workshops

      by Alexandra Beatty, Rapporteur; Committee on Best Practices for State Assessment Systems: Improving Assessment While Revisiting Standards; National Research Council

      Educators and policy makers in the United States have relied on tests to measure educational progress for more than 150 years, and have used the results for many purposes. They have tried minimum competency testing; portfolios; multiple-choice items, brief and extended constructed-response items; and more. They have contended with concerns about student privacy, test content, and equity--and they have responded to calls for tests to answer many kinds of questions about public education and literacy, international comparisons, accountability, and even property values. State assessment data have been cited as evidence for claims about many achievements of public education, and the tests have also been blamed for significant failings. States are now considering whether to adopt the "common core" academic standards, and are also competing for federal dollars from the Department of Education's Race to the Top initiative. Both of these activities are intended to help make educational standards clearer and more concise and to set higher standards for students. As standards come under new scrutiny, so, too, do the assessments that measure their results. This book summarizes two workshops convened to collect information and perspectives on assessment in order to help state officials and others as they review current assessment practices and consider improvements.

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