This article concludes the special issue of "Studies in Educational Evaluation" concerned with "Evaluating learning pattern development in higher education" by discussing research issues that have emerged from the previous contributions. The article considers in turn: stability versus variability in learning patterns; old versus new analytic…

The article focuses on the realisation of participatory evaluation (PE) in national educational evaluation activity. The realisation of PE is examined by adapting the Daigneault and Jacob model (2009; originally Cousins & Whitmore, 1998) to five national-level educational evaluations carried out in Finland. According to the chosen frame of…

This paper presents the fundamental characteristics of the Final Year Project (FYP), its associated competences and some evaluation standards that derived from a research conducted by the regional government of Catalonia (Spain) and the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency. More analytically, the paper begins with the definition of the…

Evaluation policies set an important frame of reference for how evaluations are implemented. Despite the central influence that policies play in how evaluations are conducted, little empirical work has been conducted to better understand how these policies are interpreted and implemented. This paper describes the findings of case study evaluation…

This article describes an evaluation method based on collaboration between the higher education, a care home and university, in a R&D project. The aim of the project was to elaborate modelling as a tool of developmental evaluation for innovation and competence in project cooperation. The approach was based on activity theory. Modelling enabled a…

This paper focuses on an unceremonious type of formative assessment--"informal formative assessment"--in which much of what teachers and students do in the classroom can be described as potential assessments that can provide evidence about the students' level of understanding. More specifically, the paper focuses on assessment conversations, or…

In many European languages, the words "assessment" and "evaluation" are synonymous, but in English the two terms are used differently. Educational "assessment" is learner-focused and part of professional pedagogy, relating directly to the accountability of practitioners and schools to learners and their families. Educational "evaluation" is…

A prerequisite for AfL to be successfully implemented in the classroom is the teachers' assessment practice. In many contexts, including the Norwegian, AfL has not been successfully dealt with during initial teacher education, and there is a need for qualified teachers to engage in professional development in AfL. This article first discusses…

Developments in school education in Australia over the past decade have witnessed the rise of national efforts to reform curriculum, assessment and reporting. Constitutionally the power to decide on curriculum matters still resides with the States. Higher stakes in assessment, brought about by national testing and international comparative…

This article describes the approach of dynamic assessment, focusing on general approaches as well as specific constraints for the assessment of reading competence. Starting with an overview of the literature on dynamic assessments within educational research, the framework of dynamic assessment in which the current level of competence and…

Pupil monitoring systems support the teacher in tailoring teaching to the individual level of a student and in comparing the progress and results of teaching with national standards. The systems are based on the availability of an item bank calibrated using item response theory. The assessment of the students' progress and results can be further…

The Clinical Practice Assessment System (CPAS), developed in response to teacher preparation program accreditation requirements, represents a paradigm shift of one university toward data-based decision-making in teacher education programs. The new assessment system is a scale aligned with INTASC Standards, which allows for observation and…

Over the past 10 years, public criticism of student achievement has been accompanied by a multitude of educational reforms, most of which emphasized the importance of setting national standards for student achievement and for the level and quality of teaching. The demand for frameworks to assess the extent to which students and teachers met the…

This paper synthesizes the existing literature on stakeholder involvement in program evaluation, drawing a basic distinction between deep involvement of a few versus less active involvement of a broad range of stakeholders. The paper then comments on the case studies described in this special issue and integrates them with previously published…

In this essay, we describe our experiences working with a rebellious primary stakeholder, Sylvia, as evaluators of a district-wide safe schools program. Given the breadth of the program and its multiple target constituencies, we were confronted with the challenges of managing a large number of stakeholders, or those individuals and groups that…