Education Commons^™

Summing It Up : Mathematics Achievement In Australian Schools In Timss 2002, Nicole Fleming, Sue Thomson

Nicole Wernert

This document analyses and interprets the Australian data collected as part of the TIMSS study for Year 4 and Year 8 students.

Evaluation In Latin America And The Caribbean: An Overview Of Recent Developments, Thomas Chianca, Brandon Youker

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

In the past ten years, evaluation, as a professional field, has undergone significant development in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Four considerations provide clear evidence of such development: (1) establishment of professional evaluation organizations; (2) intensified dissemination of ideas and use of professional evaluation in the three key societal sectors: government, private, and philanthropic; (3) increased number of evaluation-related publications; and (4) growing establishment of short-term and graduate-level training programs in evaluation.

Homogenous And High Performing Classes : The Case Of Optimal Classes, K Schwippert, Maurice Walker

Maurice Walker

Students enter schools with different levels of reading literacy and this study concentrated on the school's influence on students' subsequent development in reading literacy. The question is whether teacher and school characteristics, by themselves, have a systematic influence on the development of students' reading literacy. It has been and continues to be a goal of schools, in tandem with social policies, to compensate for student disadvantage arising form the out-of-school environment. Schools should not therefore aim to offer uniform educational opportunities to students without regard to differences in students' background and learning profiles. This article demonstrates it is classes where …

Inclusion Of Numeracy In Adult Basic Education, Dave Tout, Mary Schmitt

David (Dave) Tout

In their chapter on numeracy, the authors begin by exploring the many terms used to describe the learning of mathematics by adults. They discuss the relationship between the terms "mathematics" and "numeracy" and explain why numeracy--making meaning with numbers and mathematical processes--is the term they chose for their overview. Moving on to examine adult numeracy education in the U.S, the authors find that little attention is paid to the development of math skills among adults in Adult Basic Education (ABE) research but that adult numeracy education is prominent in practice. They highlight the development of practitioner groups that share ideas, …

Assessment Criteria In A Large-Scale Writing Test: What Do They Really Mean To The Raters?, Tom Lumley

Dr Tom Lumley

The process of rating written language performance is still not well understood, despite a body of work investigating this issue over the last decade or so (e.g., Cumming, 1990; Huot, 1990; Vaughan, 1991; Weigle, 1994a; Milanovic et al., 1996). The purpose of this study is to investigate the process by which raters of texts written by ESL learners make their scoring decisions using an analytic rating scale designed for multiple test forms. The context is the Special Test of English Proficiency (step), which is used by the Australian government to assist in immigration decisions. Four trained, experienced and reliable step …

Numeracy In The Adult Literacy And Life Skills Project., M Manly, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

This paper reports on the development to date of the numeracy conceptual framework for the Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Project. The inclusion of a numeracy scale in the ALL survey offered a significant opportunity to develop a new conceptual framework for adult numeracy. This paper discusses the meaning of numeracy and the notion of numerate behaviour, represents a framework of five facets, looks at a complexity-rating scheme used to guide construction of the assessment tasks, and finally presents some preliminary findings about adults' ability to solve different percentage tasks.

Item Panelling, Or Cognitive Walk-Through, Ross Turner

Ross Turner

Are Teaching Evaluation Questionnaires Valid? Assessing The Evidence, Larry D. Barnett

Larry D Barnett

No abstract provided.

Strategic Planning: Key Environment Indicators For Pennsylvania, Carole A. George

Carole A. George

Now that the State Board of Education has adopted new regulations requiring all school districts to develop a strategic plan, it seems useful to describe the role of demographic information in that planning process. This Pennsylvania Educational Policy Studies (PEPS) report provides a rationale for considering information regarding key environmental factors in the district's strategic planning process. The factors considered include those representing the family environment, the community, and the possible competition from non-public schools. This paper also describes ways in which Pennsylvania's school districts vary with respect to these demographic factors, and how the latest version of PEPS PC …