Poor retention rates for Core French, combined with the federal government's action plan to increase bilingualism in Canada, have led to the introduction of Intensive French (IF) in Grade 6 as an alternative for learning French. While anecdotal reports suggest that IF has no negative impact on English language skill development, empirical evidence…

The assessment of physical literacy is vital and challenging for researchers and practitioners. Passport for Life is a Canadian global practitioner-based, formative, criterion-referenced assessment of physical literacy that is recorded in an online program. Students complete eight assessments divided across four broad categories of physical…

This study examined the relationship between ninth-grade students' use of connectives (temporal, causal, adversative, and additive) in functional writing and performance on standards-based/criterion-referenced measures of reading and writing. Specifically, structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques were used to examine the relationship between…

In this paper, we report on the design and implementation of a state of the art Student Information System (SIS) being developed in a moderate size Alberta, Canada school jurisdiction. The SIS design is premised upon transparency, balanced, comprehensive, and multi-method assessments that links qualitative and quantitative data in support of…

Inquiry-based instruction is common to nearly every model of gifted education. Six teachers of 14 secondary classes were briefly interviewed about their teaching and learning methods, use of inquiry-based strategies, classroom descriptions, a typical day, student expectations, and inquiry-instruction outcomes. A criterion-referenced checklist of…

Criterion-referenced measures, such as those used in the assessment of crime and violence, prioritize predictive accuracy (discrimination) at the expense of construct validity. In this article, we compared the discrimination and incremental validity of three commonly used criterion-referenced measures for sex offenders (Rapid Risk Assessment for…

The authors conducted a third-party study of the student achievement effects of Struggling Schools, a user-generated approach to Comprehensive School Reform (CSR). The design was a quasiexperimental, pre-post matched sample (N = 180) with school as unit of analysis, drawing on 3 years of achievement data from standardized external assessments.…

This document describes the development and application of a model for generating a core reading vocabulary screening test based on rank frequency distributions derived from a quarter of a million word corpus of 500 word samples embracing commerce, English, home economics, industrial education, mathematics, science, and social studies. The word…

The Ontario Ministry of Education conducted case studies of the testing programs in nine selected school districts. Results are presented in narrative form on the major study questions: testing program development and organization, the tests administered, uses of test results, and perceived role of the ministry in evaluation programs. (SJL)

A series of tests was administered to Ontario, Canada students who had completed the eighth grade: mathematics, reading, language, written English, social studies, science, health, physical fitness, French as a second language, French as a first language, written French, values, moral reasoning, problem solving, and attitudes. Approximately 50…

Fifty-four standardized tests and subtests are examined, including achievement batteries, specific domain tests, and criterion-referenced tests. Individual test items are examined for their relationship to curriculum objectives developed by the Ministry of Education, Ontario for grades 7, 8, 9, and 10. The objectives are examined in four subject…

Pilot, field, and final tests in listening and in speaking knowledge, skills, and attitudes for Alberta (Canada) students in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12 were constructed, using the following steps: (1) selection and validation of high-priority measurable objectives; (2) review of existing tests and related literature; (3) pilot test construction,…

A survey was conducted among Ontario, Canada teachers, administrators, and parents regarding the following aspects of French-language achievement testing: which standardized and criterion-referenced tests were used; who developed the tests; how test results were used; how school boards communicated test results to parents; what trends existed in…

Evaluation instruments and current practices used in measuring achievement in Ontario, Canada elementary schools were examined. An analytical review of currently available achievement measures was made in relation to the objectives of "The Formative Years", a circular issued on the Ontario Minestry on Education. Results of item analyses…