When examining various evaluation prescriptive theories comparatively, we find it helpful to have a framework showing how they are related that highlights features that distinguish theoretical perspectives, thus a "theory" about theories. The evaluation theory tree that we presented in Alkin's recent book, "Evaluation Roots" [Eisner, E. (2004).…

This study employed a multilevel technique to examine pupil-, school- and province-level factors that influence achievement in mathematics and reading of Grade 5 primary school pupils in Vietnam. The data for this study were collected as part of a major survey that sought to examine the quality of education offered in Vietnam primary schools.…

Given South Africa's divided past, it is imperative to improve educational outcomes to overcome labour market inequalities. Historically white and Indian schools still outperform black and coloured schools in examinations, and intraclass correlation coefficients (rho) reflect far greater between-school variance than for other countries. SACMEQ's…

As a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002, the field of education has seen a heavy emphasis on the use of "scientifically based research" for designing and testing the effectiveness of new and existing educational programs. According to NCLB, when addressing basic cause and effect questions scientifically based research…

Recent decades have witnessed a remarkable rise in the regulation of public services and servants, education being a case in point. External evaluation and inspection has been an important element of this trend. Increasingly, however as the limitations of external surveillance systems have become clear the concept of internal or self-evaluation…

The article presents a multi-faceted theory of "ideal high school student" traits. The trait system, as defined by several theories, is a translation of the teachers' belief system into educational objectives. The study focused on Bloom's taxonomies and the structural validity of its principles, using Similarity Structure Analysis. Aware of the…

Educators, practitioners, and policy makers have long debated the impact of the results of evaluation studies on educational practice. If evaluation is to influence practice, the communication gap between researchers and decision makers must be reduced or eliminated. In order to close this gap, evaluators must become educators, working with a…

The assessment of students is used for various different purposes within an assessment system. It has an impact on students, teaching and the curriculum, the nature of this impact depending upon how it is carried out. In order to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of particular assessment procedures, criteria need to be applied. This…

High quality assessment practice is expected to yield valid and useful score-based interpretations about what the examinees know and are able to do with respect to a defined target domain. Given this assertion, the article presents a framework based on the "unified view of validity," advanced by Cronbach and Messick over two decades ago, to assist…

This article discusses the positive and negative consequences of large-scale testing on five key stakeholders of testing results: students, teachers, administrators, policymakers and parents. The factors that affect the nature of testing consequences are also discussed and means that may provide remedies for associated pitfalls are proposed.

In this article, data from the Reading Literacy study conducted in 2000 and 2001 as part of the OECD "Programme for International Student Assessment" (PISA) were analysed in order to explore equivalence issues across the 47 test adaptations in various languages of instruction that were used by the participating countries. On average, about 82% of…

This article argues that a "probabilistic" interpretation of competence can provide the basis for a link between assessment, teaching and learning, curriculum resources and policy development. Competence is regarded as a way of interpreting the quality of performance in a coherent series of hierarchical tasks. The work of Glaser is combined with…

The problem of bullying has gained attention in recent years. Schools are investing significant resources into antibullying programs, despite scant evidence of program effectiveness. Three hundred ninety-five schools responded to a province-wide survey, whose purpose was (a) to describe the evaluation activities of schools relative to their…

This article presents a method for computer-aided tutor evaluation: Bayesian Networks are used for organizing the collected data about tutors and for enabling accurate estimations and predictions about future tutor behavior. The model provides indications about each tutor's strengths and weaknesses, which enables the evaluator to exploit strengths…

Data from the "Health Behavior in School-Aged Children Study" (Currie, Samdal, Boyce, & Smith, 2001) were used to analyze the differences in perceptions of educational experiences among over 10,000 sixth to tenth graders of different grades, genders, races and ethnicities. The relationships between students' evaluations of their school experiences…