Clarifies the term "emergent literacy" and reviews significant informal assessment techniques, record-keeping systems, and reporting measures appropriate for emergent literacy. Discusses guidelines for whole-language assessment. Suggests areas of evaluation to be considered for inclusion in a locally developed emergent literacy assessment system.…

Argues that teachers should be encouraged to use not just pencil-and-paper tests but also observations, interviews, and even students' journals to gather information on which to base their evaluations. (PK)

Suggesting that, like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the United States, Britain's Assessment of Performance Unit is likely to evoke opposition, the author proposes a teacher-based assessment system as an alternative. (SJL) Aspect of National Assessment (NAEP) dealt with in this document: Procedures (Evaluation).

Discusses assessment in education, examining how the current desire to assess outcomes of significance can be incorporated into an outcomes assessment system. Assessment characteristics and how assessment fits into an outcome-based educational system are explored. (SM)

The kinds of questions administrators, teachers, parents, the community, and children ask from under each of their hats makes educators and others aware of the information needs that people have for judging the success of schooling. Each audience, each role, asks slightly different questions, and the information needed to answer those questions is…

Unobtrusive measures are recommended as a means of assessing educational outcomes of colleges. Such measures can counteract the response bias which is common in questionnaires and interviews. Outcomes researchers are, in fact, asked to supplement standard measures with unobtrusive measures. Interesting data may result from observation of students'…

This discussion paper stresses the validity and usefulness of a full range of assessment practices as an integral part of the learning and teaching of mathematics. (PK)