Performance evaluation may change employee effort and decisions in unintended ways, for example, in multitask jobs where the evaluation measure captures only a subset of (differentially weights) the job tasks. We show evidence of this multitask distortion in schools, with teachers allocating effort across students (tasks). Teachers are evaluated…

Academic institutions worldwide, from primary schools to universities, use grades or marks as a fundamental sorting and signaling mechanism for students. The grades awarded to students should be indicative of learning outcomes. However, do the grades awarded today accurately reflect student achievement in the classroom? Grade inflation has become…

Written to accompany the strategies presented in "The Principalship from A-Z," the activities in this book will help you apply the leadership concepts of Blackburn and Williamson to your own experiences as principal. Here, the authors guide you through the process of turning each idea into an actionable plan for your school, allowing you to take…

Discusses computer-graded examinations as a means of improving test construction, student evaluation, and teacher effectiveness. Mentions that teachers need to be cognizant of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives in preparing examinations. Describes the statistical information obtainable from item analyses, such as difficulty index, phi…

A single-letter grade, the traditional method of reporting the performance of student teachers, does not adequately reflect the strengths and weaknesses of vocational students' abilities to teach both content and skills. A criterion-referenced approach can provide a more descriptive record of each student teacher's competencies. (CT)

Some professors argue that it is possible to "buy" higher course evaluations by grading more leniently and requiring less work. This study investigated the relations of student effort, appropriateness of class difficulty, and course evaluations with a sample of 463 undergraduates from a mid-sized, Midwestern university. Findings support…

"Students in a college course were given written criteria, divided into teams, and asked to score their own essay examination... The results support the generalization that subjective scoring standards are readily communicable. (Author)

Teachers' merit pay and students' grades depend on valid evaluations and are functions of many factors besides the quality of work being evaluated. If individual merit cannot be validly determined as a basis for rewards, then there is not a fair system of merit rewards for teachers and students. (SM)

Reports on a study of the impact of student evaluations of higher education economics instructors on faculty behavior and grades. Finds that initially grades increased but then declined over a nine-year period. Recommends further research on this issue. (CFR)

Two grading distributions--a liberal and a more stringent curve--were compared between two sections of an undergraduate psychology course. The two classes were team taught and treated as similarly as possible. Four unit exams and an optional final were administered, with one section consistently receiving a more lenient grade distribution. No…

The essence of interpersonal communication in negotiation is the achievement of consensus. This paper discusses the many variables which affect negotiation situations, in small groups or in large institutions like the university. Specifically, will proper orientation in the bargaining process increase the chances of reaching consensus? What…

Reasons for a national shift from traditional to alternative assessment practices are examined, and the philosophical beliefs and theoretical assumptions of traditional and alternative assessment are examined. Classroom implications of this paradigm shift for instructional strategies, formative and summative evaluation, development of rubrics used…

This yearbook is a call for radical change in educational evaluation. Part 1 defines evaluation, discusses its contributions to education, and assesses present practices. Part 2 examines the potential role of evaluation in improving learning and in maximizing teacher effectiveness. Part 3 shows that it is possible and desirable to discard the old…

This handbook on teaching is divided into seven parts. Following the introduction (Part I), Part II presents essays on student and faculty rights and responsibilities, evaluation and assessment, grades, and teaching and efficiency. Part III is a summary of interviews on teaching and research with 20 professors from the University of Kansas…

This book is designed for students taking a first course in classroom assessment and measurement. It shows how assessment principles apply to the full range of teacher decision making and not just the formal evaluation of student learning. The book is organized in a way that follows the natural progression of teachers' decision making, from…