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Assessment Development (assessment + development)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Education50%

Selected Abstracts

Stakeholders in Comprehensive Validation of Standards-Based Assessments: A Commentary

EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT: ISSUES AND PRACTICE, Issue 1 2002
Linda Crocker
Linda Cracker is a Professor of Educational Psychology, University ofFlorida, P.O. Box 11 7047 Gainesville, FL 32611-7043. Her areas of specialization are assessment development, validation, and test-taking behavior. [source]

How and when does complex reasoning occur?

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 6 2009
Empirically driven development of a learning progression focused on complex reasoning about biodiversity
Abstract In order to compete in a global economy, students are going to need resources and curricula focusing on critical thinking and reasoning in science. Despite awareness for the need for complex reasoning, American students perform poorly relative to peers on international standardized tests measuring complex thinking in science. Research focusing on learning progressions is one effort to provide more coherent science curricular sequences and assessments that can be focused on complex thinking about focal science topics. This article describes an empirically driven, five-step process to develop a 3-year learning progression focusing on complex thinking about biodiversity. Our efforts resulted in empirical results and work products including: (1) a revised definition of learning progressions, (2) empirically driven, 3-year progressions for complex thinking about biodiversity, (3) an application of statistical approaches for the analysis of learning progression products, (4) Hierarchical Linear Modeling results demonstrating significant student achievement on complex thinking about biodiversity, and (5) Growth Model results demonstrating strengths and weaknesses of the first version of our curricular units. The empirical studies present information to inform both curriculum and assessment development. For curriculum development, the role of learning progressions as templates for the development of organized sequences of curricular units focused on complex science is discussed. For assessment development, learning progression-guided assessments provide a greater range and amount of information that can more reliably discriminate between students of differing abilities than a contrasting standardized assessment measure that was also focused on biodiversity content. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 610,631, 2009 [source]

On the cultural validity of science assessments

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 5 2001
Guillermo Solano-Flores
We propose the concept of cultural validity as a form of test validity in science assessment. The conceptual relevance of cultural validity is supported by evidence that culture and society shape an individual's mind and thinking. To attain cultural validity, the process of assessment development must consider how the sociocultural context in which students live influences the ways in which they make sense of science items and the ways in which they solve them. These sociocultural influences include the values, beliefs, experiences, communication patterns, teaching and learning styles, and epistemologies inherent in the students' cultural backgrounds, as well as the socioeconomic conditions prevailing in their cultural groups. We contend that current approaches to handling student diversity in assessment (e.g., adapting or translating tests, providing assessment accommodations, estimating test cultural bias) are limited and lack sociocultural perspective. We find that attaining cultural validity may conflict with current basic principles and assumptions in testing, such as item independence and standardization. We discuss the ways in which adopting cultural validity as a criterion for test validity makes it necessary to shift assessment paradigms and adopt new procedures for assessment development. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 553,573, 2001 [source]

A NEW SURGICAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMME

ANZ JOURNAL OF SURGERY, Issue 7 2007
John P. Collins
Educating and training tomorrow's surgeons has evolved to become a sophisticated and expensive exercise involving a wide range of learning methods, opportunities and stakeholders. Several factors influence this process, prompting those who provide such programmes to identify these important considerations and develop and implement appropriate responses. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons embarked on this course of action in 2005, the outcome of which is the new Surgical Education and Training programme with the first intake to be selected in 2007 and commence training in 2008. The new programme is competency based and shorter than any designed previously. Implicitly, it recognizes in the curriculum and assessment development and processes, the nine roles and their underpinning competencies identified as essential for a surgeon. It is an evolution of the previous programme retaining that which has been found to be satisfactory. There will be one episode of selection directly into the candidate's specialty of choice and those accepted will progress in an integrated and seamless fashion, provided they meet the clinical and educational requirements of each year. The curriculum and assessment in the basic sciences include both generic and specially aligned components from the commencement of training in each of the nine surgical specialties. Born of necessity and developed through extensive research, discussion and consensus, the implementation of this programme will involve many challenges, particularly during the transition period. Through cooperation, commitment and partnerships, a more efficient and better outcome will be achieved for trainees, their trainers and their patients. [source]

Short forms of subjective quality of life assessments from cross-cultural studies for use in surveys with different populations

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY (AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THEORY & PRACTICE), Issue 3 2008
Holger Mühlan
Among several advances in quality of life (QOL) assessment development, such as cross-cultural comparability of measurements, inclusion of more specific target populations, and assessment on different levels of QOL generality, economy of measurement has become of increasing importance. As a consequence, construction of short forms and indices of original measures is common in QOL assessment development. The present paper puts special emphasis upon the issue of shortening measures and developing short forms in QOL assessment in relation to this development. Some basic principles and procedures of short-form development in general are outlined, and selected prominent examples of short-form development as applied to QOL assessment are described.,Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]