Assessment is a concept familiar across the field of education and is inherent to the work of professors, administrators, teachers, researchers, journalists, and scholars. A multifaceted and politically charged topic, assessment ranges from informal interactions with learners in classrooms to systematic high-stakes testing and examination. Written by a leading expert on assessment, this book situates the topic within the broader context of educational psychology research and theory and brings it to a wider audience. With chapters on the fundamentals of assessment, explanations of its uses, and advice for best application, this concise volume is designed for any education course that includes assessment in the curriculum. It will be indispensable for student researchers and both pre- and in-service teachers alike.

Balanced, concise, and practical, Waugh and Gronlund's Assessment of Student Achievement, Tenth Edition, presents an exceptionally strong set of strategies to help teachers assess all learners in today's schools. Written in a simple and direct manner, and using frequent examples and illustrations to clarify important points, the text is a balanced, concise, and practical guide for testing and performance assessment. The authors' approach emphasizes testing as well as performance evaluation--each used when it is most appropriate--as integral steps that improve student learning and ultimately build student success. This highly-regarded textbook, replete with thorough updates in the new tenth edition, prepares educators use assessment as a tool to help develop all students in their classrooms. A great portion of the textbook is devoted to preparing and using classroom tests and performance assessments, assigning grades, and interpreting standardized test scores to individual students and parents.

Based on a solid theoretical basis of assessment-as-learning and updated empirical evidences, this timely book significantly expands the existing scope of assessment-as-learning typically developed in Western contexts. This edited volume updates theoretical and empirical advances in assessment-as-learning in complex learning processes, brought together by an international panel of authors. The contributors provide a wide range of practical ways to harness the power of assessment-as-learning to make it work more effectively not only in the classroom, but also across other achievement-related situations (e.g. examinations, learning processes before and after classes). Assessment as Learning provides a deep contemporary insight into the field of formative assessment, and brings much-needed international perspectives to complement the current Western-focused research. This is a valuable contribution to the discussion, and provides useful insight for researchers in Education.

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.

Based on the premise that assessment of student achievement plays a vital role in instruction - and that its main goal is to improve learning - this new resource emphasizes all types of achievement assessments, not simply classroom assessments. While stressing the importance of using both classroom tests and performance assessments for a comprehensive assessment of all intended learning outcomes, author Gronlund explains that each makes a unique and important contribution and each, therefore, complements and supplements the other. In it you see clearly how to prepare and use classroom tests and performance assessments, how to assign grades, and how to interpret standardized test scores to students and parents. Here you'll find all the basic concepts presented with scrupulous technical accuracy in a simple, direct, understandable manner. Practical examples, checklists, boxed material highlighting significant points, and summaries of main points make the concepts extremely clear.

This book discusses four approaches to incorporating student achievement in teacher evaluation. Seven chapters discuss: (1) "Teacher Evaluation and Student Achievement: An Introduction to the Issues"; (2) "What is the Relationship between Teaching and Learning?" (e.g., whether teachers are responsible for student learning and how to measure student learning); (3) "Assessing Teacher Performance through Comparative Student Growth: The Dallas Value-Added Accountability System"; (4) "Assessing Teacher Performance through Repeated Measures of Student Gains: The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System"; (5) "Assessing Teacher Performance with Student Work: The Oregon Teacher Work Sample Methodology"; (6) "Assessing Teacher Performance in a Standards-Based Environment: The Thompson, Colorado, School District"; and (7) Teacher Evaluation and Student Achievement: What are the Lessons Learned and Where Do We Go from Here?" (e.g., basic requirements of fair testing programs that are to be used to inform teacher evaluation). Chapters 3-6 include information on the purposes of the accountability system and how it was developed; student assessment strategies; how the accountability system works; how the accountability system relates to teacher evaluation; the advantages and disadvantages of the accountability system for teacher evaluation; and results of implementation. (Contains 66 references.) (SM)

This book draws together leading student assessment academics from across Europe exploring student monitoring policies and practices in a range of countries across 22 chapters. The chapters in the first part offer a broad overview on student assessment covering history and current status, aims and approaches as well as methodological challenges of international student assessment. The second part presents country specific chapters provide an in depth look examining country specific policy and practices and findings of national and/or international assessments. Findings are critically discussed and recommendations are made for further development of each country's assessment context. The book shows similarities and differences within the educational assessment landscape as well as complexity and similarities in assessment policy documents and strategies, Given the globalized world we live in today, this book fills a need in the higher educational context and is intended for for policy makers in different countries as well.