Critics suggest that youth lack basic civic knowledge and are disengaging from civic action, particularly political action. The validity of these criticisms depends on how civic knowledge and civic engagement are defined. The results of four studies of civic education, conducted by the IEA over a period of almost 50 years, are examined in terms of…

Distance education has been practised for generations, although its purpose and form have changed. Correspondence courses, in which students receive instruction via mail and respond with assignments or questions to the instructor, date back to the mid-1800s, if not earlier. As technology changed, so did the nature of distance education. Radio,…

In this summary article, six recommendations for the design, implementation, and interpretation of educational evaluations are presented and discussed. These recommendations are based on common "threads" that run through most, if not all, of the papers included in this special issue. The recommendations concern (1) the need for awareness…

In recent years there was been a raft of criticisms of the way that grades (or marks) are assigned to students. The purpose of this paper is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of grading systems and grading practices, drawing upon both historical and contemporary research and writing. Five questions are used to frame the review and organize…

Over the past half century, much has been learned about the ways in which students develop and learn. Unfortunately, this knowledge often does not find its way into the classroom. Teachers can begin to use this knowledge by focusing on a few key ideas. They need to go beyond the presentation of content to helping students acquire strategies for…

Upper elementary teachers won't be surprised to learn that in every state, students enrolled in grades 3 through 8 bear the brunt of educational accountability. All states test all students at these grade levels in English/language arts and mathematics. Furthermore, an increasing number of states are testing students at selected elementary and…

The last five to ten years has seen a renewed interest in the stability of teacher behavior and effectiveness. Data on teacher performance and teacher effectiveness are being used increasingly as the basis for decisions about continued employment, tenure and promotion, and financial bonuses. The purpose of this study is to explore the stability of…

Merl Wittrock, a cognitive psychologist who had proposed a generative model of learning, was an essential member of the group that over a period of 5 years revised the "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives," originally published in 1956. This article describes the development of that 2001 revision (Anderson and Krathwohl, Editors) and Merl's…

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…

For five years, from 1995 until 2000, a group of eight educators and researchers met twice annually in Syracuse, NY, for the purpose of revising Bloom's Taxonomy. Based in part on the structure of educational objectives, in part on advances in cognitive psychology, and in part on numerous other attempts to classify educational objectives that were…

The allocation and use of time are considered important in the context of learning because time can be manipulated, measured, and applied to the design of instructional programs. After a clarification of terminology, an overview of current research on time is offered and policy recommendations discussed. (MJL)

Critiques the Napa/Vacaville project for being exceptionally well designed yet being ineffective. The key to effective staff development is to find ways of increasing teachers' ability to accept innovations and incorporate them into their teaching repertoires. (MD)

More information is necessary about constraints placed on teachers before sound classroom performance evaluations can be conducted. Results of an observational instrument utilized in South Carolina, "Describing Practices and Intentions of Classroom Teachers," isolates classroom factors associated with appropriateness of teachers'…

Schools have devised several ways to adapt instruction to a wide variety of student abilities and needs. Judged by criteria for what adaptive education should be, most learning for mastery programs look good. (Author/JM)

Examines key differences among content coverage, opportunity to learn, and curriculum alignment, suggesting that the revised Taxonomy provides a framework for analyzing curriculum alignment and illustrating how the Taxonomy Table can be used to estimate curriculum alignment. The paper notes that the revised Taxonomy enables educators to probe…