Informal but frequent teacher evaluations of students' academic achievement are not standardized by official prescriptions dictating which reference system is to be used. Three reference norms used when evaluating achievement are: social, criterion-oriented, and individual reference norms. (PN)

Describes a study to investigate how effectively concept mapping can be used to focus children on their own learning in science and to provide a way of describing their own achievements. Findings indicate that some children were able to identify specific targets for future learning. Motivation and metacognition were the main areas of benefit. (PVD)

All sixth class pupils in 93 Irish primary schools were rated by their teachers as either having or not having problems related to literacy (in reading or writing). Teachers perceived 6.2% of pupils as being unable to cope with everyday demands in reading, while 6.6% were perceived as unable to cope with everyday demands in writing. A further 7%…