What is assessment literacy? It is a handful of fundamental understandings about the testing concepts and procedures that influence educational decisions. And it just might be the most cost-effective means of real school improvement. With characteristic humor and aplomb, assessment expert W. James Popham strips away the psychometrician-speak and…

This article begins by clarifying the distinction between formative and summative evaluation that was first drawn by Michael Scriven (1967) in an influential essay regarding education evaluation. Scriven supplied his analysis soon after the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was enacted in 1965--a time when almost no serious attention…

The tests we use to evaluate student achievement may well be sound measures of what students know, but they are faulty indicators at best of how well they have been taught. A remedy to this this situation of judging teachers by the performance of their students on high-stakes tests may be in hand already. We should look to the methods successfully…

In recent years, increasing numbers of professional development programs have dealt with assessment literacy for teachers and/or administrators. Is assessment literacy merely a fashionable focus for today's professional developers or, in contrast, should it be regarded as a significant area of professional development interest for many years to…

The analysis is intended to provide California educators with a number of specific, step-by-step suggestions for devising the teacher appraisal systems required by new legislation in the Stull Bill. An overview of essential ingredients of the new requirements is given in the first part of this document in order to familiarize teachers with…

Recent studies indicate that experienced teachers may not be more proficient than people off the street" in causing behavior changes in learners. (Author/LR)

This book consists of six self-instructional programs to be completed individually by the reader. Topics of the programs are: current conceptions of educational evaluation; modern measurement methods; instructional supervision; a criterion-referenced strategy; constructing teaching performance tests; using teaching performance tests; and…

As a method of helping teachers evaluate their own instructional performance on the basis of how that instruction affects learners, teaching performance tests may prove a useful ally to the elementary school principal. (Author)

Assessment for learning involves the frequent, continual use of both formal and informal classroom assessments. It can be as simple as requiring students to respond to a lesson-embedded, one-item quiz as a way of gauging student understanding of what is being taught. Ideally, this innovative approach to classroom assessment is based on a careful…

A discussion of accountability of teacher performance using domain-referenced tests. (HB)

A project was undertaken to develop and validate a method of assessing teacher competence through the use of pupil performance tests. Teachers were given a list of specific, operationally defined objectives for a particular topic and directed to teach the objectives. Teacher competence was judged in relationship to the way their students performed…

Norm-referenced testing is not appropriate for use in teacher evaluation. A truly equitable method of teacher evaluation is based on a clear set of instructional targets and on the teacher's effectiveness in helping students master the specific skills and knowledge targeted. (Author/MLF)

Two performance tests of teaching proficiency in the field of trade and industrial education were developed during this project, one in the field of auto mechanics (carburetion) and one in the field of electronics (power supplies). An assessment was made of each test's ability to distinguish between experienced teachers and the non-teacher with…