Ticks and crosses (TCs) are a common aspect of teachers' classroom practice in relation to assessment in many learning areas including mathematics. Putting TCs in learners' written work is a strategy of feedback. Even though these TCs are frequently used in different types of mathematics assessments, there is limited research in relation to what…

Standardised International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) have gained prominence in global and national educational discussions. ILSAs claim to offer valuable insights for improving education systems, but their impact on educational policy varies and has become a contested arena. This article analyses how these assessments fed educational…

Background: On an annual basis, students across Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on their literacy and numeracy skills via the National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), with the student performance data used for purposes including national accountability. Purpose: Against this backdrop of large-scale national…

The discourse of quality has permeated everyday discussions about education, yet the concept as such remains complex. Moreover, during the constant struggle to improve educational quality, governments have increasingly devoted attention to the results of international large-scale assessments. As those results are used to inform policy decisions to…

Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has increased significantly over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policy-making and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

By the first decade of the 21st century, the idea of data use in education had swept into U.S. schooling from other fields, such as manufacturing, sports, and medicine. Its enthusiasts included funders, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and district leaders eager to help foster the use of data in schools. They argued that data could drive…

We use data from a large-scale experiment conducted in Indiana in 2009-2010 to examine the impact of two interim assessment programs (mCLASS and Acuity) across the mathematics and reading achievement distributions. Specifically, we focus on whether the use of interim assessments has a particularly strong effect on improving outcomes for low…

In concert with other Latin American countries, Brazil has developed and implemented its own national assessment system for the purpose of monitoring, evaluating and improving their educational system. Prova Brasil is a census-based bi-annual assessment of Portuguese and mathematics achievement of middle school students in Brazil accompanied by…

Results from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) garner considerable attention in the media, academia, and among policy makers. Although there is widespread recognition that ILSAs can provide useful information, there is debate about what types of comparisons are the most meaningful and what could be done to assure more sound…

Many US education reform efforts focus on student performance in large, urban school districts. The National Assessment of Educational Progress's Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) program provides data on student achievement in these districts, but differences in student characteristics complicate comparisons of district performance. I use…

Survey participation rates can have a direct impact on the validity of the data collected since nonresponse always holds the risk of bias. Therefore, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has set very high standards for minimum survey participation rates. Nonresponse in IEA studies varies between studies…

The authors describe an impact study of Classroom Assessment for Student Learning (CASL), a widely used professional development program in classroom and formative assessment. Researchers randomly assigned 67 elementary schools to receive CASL materials or continue with regularly scheduled professional development. Teachers in CASL schools formed…

This article describes a novel variation of the Body of Work method that uses construct maps to overcome problems of transparency, rater inconsistency, and scores gaps commonly occurring with the Body of Work method. The Body of Work method with construct maps was implemented to set cut-scores for two separate K-12 assessment programs in a large…

The release of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and their adoption across the United States calls for careful attention to the alignment between mathematics standards and assessments. This study investigates 2 models that measure alignment between standards and assessments, the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC) and the Webb…

Race to the Top (RTT), one of the Obama administration's signature programs and one of the largest federal government investments in an education grant program, received $4.35 billion in funding as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Through three rounds of competition in 2010 and 2011, RTT awarded grants to states that…