Comparison is an important geographic method and a common task in geography education. Mastering comparison is a complex competency and written comparisons are challenging tasks both for students and assessors. As yet, however, there is no set test for evaluating comparison competency nor tool for enhancing it. Moreover, little is known about…

Computational thinking (CT) is seen as a key competence of the 21st century and different countries have started to integrate it into their compulsory school curricula. However, few indications exist on how to assess CT in compulsory school. This review analyses what tools are used to assess CT in European schools and which dimensions are…

Context: In this paper, we review and discuss the piloting in Norway of a German methodology for competence diagnostics in vocational education and training: the Competence Development and Assessment in TVET (COMET) project. Our overarching theme is determining to what extent such large-scale assessment systems are valid for international…

Although observational instruments are considered to be the gold standard for measuring toddler childcare quality, large-scale studies often have to rely on interviews or questionnaires. However, it remains unclear whether such reports can serve as reliable indicators for childcare quality. The present study used the ITERS and FCCERS to examine…

Pretend play may be beneficial for young children's social development. However, empirical results to date are inconsistent and limited, which is partly due to a lack of psychometrically sound measures for children's social pretend play competence. The current study aimed to compare and validate different assessment methods for children's social…

This article presents a new perspective on measuring gender differences in the large-scale assessment study Trends in International Science Study (TIMSS). The suggested empirical model is directly based on the theoretical competence model of the domain mathematics and thus includes the interaction between content and cognitive sub-competencies.…

In this paper the current national legislations, the quality assurance approaches and the activities of impact analysis of three quality assurance agencies from Romania, Spain and Germany are described from a strategic perspective. The analysis shows that the general methodologies (comprising, for example, self-evaluation reports, peer reviews,…

Valid and reliable standardized assessment of nursing competencies is needed to monitor the quality of vocational education and training (VET) in nursing and evaluate learning outcomes for care work trainees with increasingly heterogeneous learning backgrounds. To date, however, the modeling of professional competencies has not yet evolved into…

Purpose: This paper investigates the potential of computerized adaptive testing for CMs to reduce test time. In the context of education and training, competency measurement (CM) is a central challenge in competency management. For complex CMs, a compromise must be addressed between the time available and the quality of the measurements.…

When competence tests are administered, subjects frequently omit items. These missing responses pose a threat to correctly estimating the proficiency level. Newer model-based approaches aim to take nonignorable missing data processes into account by incorporating a latent missing propensity into the measurement model. Two assumptions are typically…

In recent years, an increasing number of research projects have been dedicated to competency assessment not only in school and vocational education, but also in higher education (Blömeke, Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, Kuhn, & Fege, 2013). Compared to competency assessment in schools, competency assessment in higher education still is…

In the context of education and training, competency measurement (CM) is a central challenge in competency management. For complex CMs, a compromise must be addressed between the time available and the number of dimensions to be measured or the quality of the measurements. Increasing the efficiency of existing tests for CMs therefore poses a key…

We examined a web-based mathematics progress monitoring tool for second graders. The tool monitors the learning progress of two competences, number sense and computation. A total of 414 students from 19 classrooms in Germany were checked every 3 weeks from fall to spring. Correlational analyses indicate that alternate-form reliability was adequate…

This paper gives an overview of research on modelling science competence in German science education. Since the first national German educational standards for physics, chemistry and biology education were released in 2004 research projects dealing with competences have become prominent strands. Most of this research is about the structure of…

The purpose of our research was to examine a web-based tool for mathematics progress monitoring in first grade. The newly developed assessment tool uses several robust indicators and curriculum-based measures forming three competences (Basic Precursors, Advanced Precursors, and Computation) to determine comprehensive early numeracy skills in…