In an era of test-based accountability, school inspections can offer a more nuanced understanding of why schools fail. Yet, we have limited knowledge of how inspectors arrive at their decisions on school quality. Analyzing inspectors' decision-making can reveal the underlying views regarding school accountability and open opportunities for school…

As a part of classroom management, teachers face the question of how and where to seat their students. However, it is far from clear what considerations teachers have when making seating arrangements. Therefore, in this study seating arrangement considerations from 50 teachers in grades 4-6 of elementary school were assessed. In Phase 1, teachers…

I address two issues that were inspired by my work on the Dutch Committee on Tests and Testing (COTAN). The first issue is the understanding of problems test constructors and researchers using tests have of psychometric knowledge. I argue that this understanding is important for a field, like psychometrics, for which the dissemination of…

While educators teach their students about decision making in complex environments, managers have to deal with the complexity of large projects on a daily basis. To make better decisions it is assumed, that the latter would benefit from better understanding of complex phenomena, as do students as the professionals of the future. The goal of this…

While measurement precision is relatively easy to establish for single tests and assessments, it is much more difficult to determine for decision making with multiple tests on different subjects. This latter is the situation in the system of final examinations for secondary education in the Netherlands and is used as an example in this paper. This…

Lack of use of educational evaluation results in the Netherlands was investigated by analyzing 14 curriculum evaluation studies. Results indicated that rational decision making with a technical (empirical) evaluation approach makes utilization of results most likely. Incremental decision making and a conformative approach make utilization least…

It is argued that judgments in evaluative research are ultimately subjective, but that good criteria are available to assess their quality. One of these criteria is the robustness of the judgments against incompleteness or uncertainty in the data used to describe the educational system. The use of the robustness criterion is demonstrated through…

This paper examines possible explanations for the fact that evaluation results are rarely used. Most explanatory factors for use of results in decision making mentioned in the literature have been clustered in three categories of variables. They concern: (1) the making of decisions about the practical problem; (2) the way in which evaluation is…

The selection of courseware is a difficult problem in the use of computers in education. A dissemination procedure for a courseware selection instrument involving workshops for computer coordinators is described. Computer coordinators of 267 Dutch secondary schools were asked how they used certain sources of information in selecting courseware.…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…