Current thinking encourages teachers to incorporate a range of assessment practices that are responsive to student thinking and promote student learning. At the same time, teachers are situated in a landscape of accountability, where they are often seen as technicians who implement prescribed curriculum, policies, and procedures with success…

In the Swedish educational system, teachers have the dual responsibility of assigning final grades and marking their own students' national tests. The Government has mandated the Swedish Schools Inspectorate to remark samples of the national tests to see if teacher marking can be trusted. Reports from this project have concluded that intermarker…

The global spread of national assessment testing activities, and the growing pressure to move beyond basic measures of participation in educational monitoring, means that student achievement measures are likely to become increasingly relevant indicators of systemic progress in the developing world. Using data from the CESSP project in Cambodia,…

Using Singapore as an example, we argue that schools need to equip and encourage teachers to adopt authentic assessment in teaching and learning so as to develop the students' higher-order thinking. The importance of teaching and assessing higher-order thinking in Singapore classrooms is encapsulated in the vision of "Thinking Schools" launched by…

This paper introduces an empirical study that examines how teachers evaluate pupils' responses. The study draws on research undertaken at four secondary schools in the Czech Republic. It transpires that feedback has a stable position in the structure of communication; however, it is used only to verify pupils' responses and not to elaborate them.…

This study was conducted with first-year teachers. It provided insight into two key research questions: (1) What were the perceptions of new teachers regarding a standards-based performance appraisal system as it was implemented on their campus? (2) What factors contributed to the perceptions of new teachers regarding this system as it was…

Technology is not in the forefront of teacher education program thinking and planning. Yet, it is the tool dramatically changing education. Internationally, the role of technology has evolved from the role of assisting the teacher in personal management to using technology for instruction. To respond to this need, universities are altering courses…

In order for standard setting to retain public confidence, it will be argued there are two important requirements. One is that the judges' allocation of students to performance bands would yield results broadly consistent with the expectation of the wider educational community. Secondly, in the absence of any change in educational performance,…

Recent legislative and local school accountability efforts have placed a premium on the collection, analysis, and use of student assessment data for educational improvement. As a result, schools have sought assessments that will provide additional information about student performance. In response, a burgeoning boon industry formed--formative…

Whilst many definitions of formative assessment have been offered, there is no clear rationale to define and delimit it within broader theories of pedagogy. This paper aims to offer such a rationale, within a framework which can also unify the diverse set of practices which have been described as formative. The analysis is used to relate formative…