Download or read book Secondary School External Examination Systems written by Barend Vlaardingerbroek and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Summative assessment has been a contentious issue in educational circles for several decades, particularly high-stakes assessment events which arise at various junctures of the school cycle, especially those at the end of it. The French Baccalaureat and English A-Levels and their numerous clones throughout the francophone and anglophone worlds are household names and represent milestone events in people's lives, as their outcomes are principal determinants of young people's future prospects. These examinations are external--they are devised, conducted and processed by agencies outside the schools, usually ministerial examination units. As such, they act as 'blind' arbiters of student achievement, providing the proverbial 'level playing field' which ensures the comparability of outcomes. In the pyramidal school structures of yesteryear, examinations acted as filters, regulating the progression of pupils to subsequent tiers of formal education. Exit points occurred from primary school level up, from where unsuccessful candidates could enter the labour force and/or embark on occupationally specific further education and training. With the modernisation of the labour market and an ever-higher social demand for access to higher levels of formal education, the filtering function of examinations at lower levels of schooling has been gradually eroded, while burgeoning numbers of students at the upper secondary level have brought about reforms that include curricular diversification and sometimes radical overhauls of terminating assessment systems (including the modification and, in some instances, abandonment of external examinations). This edited volume brings together the experiences of twenty examination systems from around the world to show how these dynamic entities have adapted over time to the changing context of schooling. Following an introduction by Stephen P. Heyneman of World Bank repute, there are sixteen chapters presenting Country Case Studies, which have been written up under common subheadings, thereby highlighting the comparative nature of the work and facilitating cross-referencing. The subsequent four chapters elaborate on the theme of 'external examinations beyond national borders', including a contribution by the International Baccalaureate Organisation. A defining feature of the work is the attention it pays to what it calls the 'nuts and bolts' of external examinations, from question-setting to grading procedures. These are, it is argued, instrumental in nurturing and maintaining public confidence in external examinations. The book will be of immense value to people involved in educational policy studies, especially strategic educational planning, as well as those directly concerned with formal assessment. The work has been written to appeal to a wide audience of informed persons--it is accessible to teachers and interested laypeople, as well as to academics."
Download or read book Assessment and Examination in the Secondary School written by Susan Butterfield and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores current trends in assessment, with particular reference to secondary schools as well as providing a background to theory and practice relevant to both new and established teachers.
Download or read book Exam Schools written by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at academically selective public high schools in America What is the best education for exceptionally able and high-achieving youngsters? Can the United States strengthen its future intellectual leadership, economic vitality, and scientific prowess without sacrificing equal opportunity? There are no easy answers but, as Chester Finn and Jessica Hockett show, for more than 100,000 students each year, the solution is to enroll in an academically selective public high school. Exam Schools is the first-ever close-up look at this small, sometimes controversial, yet crucial segment of American public education. This groundbreaking book discusses how these schools work--and their critical role in nurturing the country's brightest students. The 165 schools identified by Finn and Hockett are located in thirty states, plus the District of Columbia. While some are world renowned, such as Boston Latin and Bronx Science, others are known only in their own communities. The authors survey the schools on issues ranging from admissions and student diversity to teacher selection. They probe sources of political support, curriculum, instructional styles, educational effectiveness, and institutional autonomy. Some of their findings are surprising: Los Angeles, for example, has no "exam schools" while New York City has dozens. Asian-American students are overrepresented—but so are African-American pupils. Culminating with in-depth profiles of eleven exam schools and thoughtful reflection on policy implications, Finn and Hockett ultimately consider whether the country would be better off with more such schools. At a time of keen attention to the faltering education system, Exam Schools sheds positive light on a group of schools that could well provide a transformative roadmap for many of America's children.
Download or read book Assessment and Examination in the Secondary School written by R. J. Riding and published by . This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed to provide a practical understanding of recent exam, curriculum and assessment developments at secondary level. The book examines the assessment of school-leavers for training and employment, the introduction of the GCSE, equal opportunities and the history of secondary education.
Download or read book Assessment in Elementary and Secondary Education written by Erin D. Caffrey and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book International Handbook of Research on Teachers and Teaching written by Lawrence J. Saha and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-04-17 with total page 1192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The International Handbook of Research on Teachers and Teaching provides a fresh look at the ever changing nature of the teaching profession throughout the world. This collection of over 70 articles addresses a wide range of issues relevant for understanding the present educational climate in which the accountability of teachers and the standardized testing of students have become dominant.
Download or read book Knowing What Students Know written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-10-27 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.
Download or read book High Stakes Testing in Education written by Theo Eggen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-14 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High-stakes educational testing is a global phenomenon which is increasing in both scale and importance. Assessments are high-stakes when there are serious consequences for one or more stakeholders. Historically, tests have largely been used for selection or for providing a ‘licence to practise’, making them high-stakes for the test takers. Testing is now also used for the purposes of improving standards of teaching and learning and of holding schools accountable for their students’ results. These tests then become high-stakes for teachers and schools, especially when they have to meet externally imposed targets. More recent has been the emergence of international comparative testing, which has become high-stakes for governments and policy makers as their education systems are judged in relation to the performances of other countries. In this book we draw on research which examines each of these uses of high-stakes testing. The articles evaluate the impact of such assessments and explore the issues of value and fairness which they raise. To underline the international appeal of high-stakes testing the studies are drawn from Australia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, former Soviet republics and North America. Collectively they illustrate the power of high-stakes assessment in shaping, for better or for worse, policy making and schooling. This book was originally published as a special issue of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice.
Download or read book Secondary School External Examination Systems written by Barend Vlaardingerbroek and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Summative assessment has been a contentious issue in educational circles for several decades, particularly high-stakes assessment events which arise at various junctures of the school cycle, especially those at the end of it. The French Baccalaurat and English A-Levels and their numerous clones throughout the francophone and anglophone worlds are household names and represent milestone events in people's lives, as their outcomes are principal determinants of young people's future prospects. These examinations are external--they are devised, conducted and processed by agencies outside the schools, usually ministerial examination units. As such, they act as 'blind' arbiters of student achievement, providing the proverbial 'level playing field' which ensures the comparability of outcomes. In the pyramidal school structures of yesteryear, examinations acted as filters, regulating the progression of pupils to subsequent tiers of formal education. Exit points occurred from primary school level up, from where unsuccessful candidates could enter the labour force and/or embark on occupationally specific further education and training. With the modernisation of the labour market and an ever-higher social demand for access to higher levels of formal education, the filtering function of examinations at lower levels of schooling has been gradually eroded, while burgeoning numbers of students at the upper secondary level have brought about reforms that include curricular diversification and sometimes radical overhauls of terminating assessment systems (including the modification and, in some instances, abandonment of external examinations). This edited volume brings together the experiences of twentyexamination systems from around the world to show how these dynamic entities have adapted over time to the changing context of schooling. Following an introduction by Stephen P. Heyneman of World Bank repute, there are sixteen chapters presenting Country Case Studies, which have been written up under common subheadings, thereby highlighting the comparative nature of the work and facilitating cross-referencing. The subsequent four chapters elaborate on the theme of 'external examinations beyond national borders', including a contribution by the International Baccalaureate Organisation. A defining feature of the work is the attention it pays to what it calls the 'nuts and bolts' of external examinations, from question-setting to grading procedures. These are, it is argued, instrumental in nurturing and maintaining public confidence in external examinations. The book will be of immense value to people involved in educational policy studies, especially strategic educational planning, as well as those directly concerned with formal assessment. The work has been written to appeal to a wide audience of informed persons--it is accessible to teachers and interested laypeople, as well as to academics.
Download or read book America 2000 written by and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Public Examinations Examined written by Thomas Kellaghan and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High-stakes public examinations exert a dominant influence in most education systems. They affect both teacher and student behavior, especially at the middle and upper levels of secondary education. The content of past examinations tends to dictate what is taught and how it is taught and, more important, what is learned and how it is learned. By changing aspects of these examinations, especially their content and format, education systems can have a strong positive impact on teacher behavior and student learning, help raise student achievement levels, and better prepare students for tertiary-level education and for employment. Examination agencies, many of which have followed the same procedures over decades, can learn from the successes and failures of other systems. This book addresses current issues related to the development, administration, scoring, and usage of these high-stakes public examinations, identifying key issues and problems related to examinations in many emerging market economies as well as in advanced economies. The book’s primary audience consists of public examination officials on national, regional, and state examination boards, but the book should also be of interest to senior education policy makers concerned with certification and learning achievement standards, to academics and researchers interested in educational assessment, to governmental and education agencies responsible for student selection, and to professionals at development organizations. “This extremely well-written and comprehensive book offers a timely review of the diversity of public examination practices worldwide; of the tensions between examinations and learning; and of the technical expertise involved in the creation of valid, reliable, and fair assessments. It reminds us that as “the diploma disease†? takes hold with an ever-greater intensity at every stage of education worldwide, and the commercial business of testing flourishes, those concerned with educational quality and meaningful learning must be on guard to prevent the assessment tail wagging the educational dog.†? Angela W. Little, Professor Emerita, Institute of Education, University College London “This book is very well structured and written and draws on the authors’ remarkable global knowledge across countries and histories. It will be a great asset both to administrators responsible for examinations and to academics and other professionals who seek to understand the nature and impact of examinations of different types and in different settings.†? Mark Bray, UNESCO Chair Professor of Comparative Education, University of Hong Kong; and former Director, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning “I am sure that Public Examinations Examined, which thoroughly analyzes the practice of public examinations in different countries and makes profound and well-grounded conclusions, will arouse very great interest and will serve to further improve public examinations.†? Victor Bolotov, Distinguished Professor, Higher School of Economics, National Research University, Moscow; member, Russian Academy of Education; and former Deputy Minister of Education, Russian Federation
Download or read book OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education Serbia written by Maghnouj Soumaya and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This review, developed in cooperation with UNICEF, provides Serbia with recommendations to help strengthen its evaluation and assessment system to focus on support for student learning. It will be of interest to Serbia, as well as other countries looking to make more effective use of their evaluation and assessment system to improve quality and equity, and result in better outcomes for all students.
Download or read book Assessment In Secondary Schools written by Val Brooks and published by McGraw-Hill Education (UK). This book was released on 2002-01-16 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a very important book. Assessment is one of the most technically and professionally challenging of topics for new teachers. Val Brooks has brought her own impressive technical expertise to bear, and sets out the key professional demands in a thorough, logical and clear way. The book draws extensively on practical examples which exemplify and develop the argument. New teachers will find it an invaluable guide; experienced teachers will find that it widens their understanding of assessment as a tool for learning" - Chris Husbands, University of Warwick "Mentors will find much to aid their sessions with student teachers, while senior staff responsible for professional development will have a sound, easily read source of material. Highly recommended" - British Journal of Educational Studies How can new teachers use assessment to enhance their teaching? How can assessment help pupils to learn? What are the arrangements for testing and examinations and the statutory assessment requirements at secondary school level? This book is aimed at students who are preparing to teach in secondary schools, and newly qualified teachers in their induction year. The entire text is devoted to assessment and therefore it is able to offer an in-depth consideration of aspects of assessment which exercise teachers at the beginning of their career, for example the relationship between assessment and learning, how assessment contributes to planning, ways of marking pupils' work, writing reports for parents and meetings with parents. Although it is informed by theory and research, the text has a practical orientation. It provides practical examples for readers to consider in developing their own practices and makes suggestions for activities intended to help beginning teachers to develop their own ideas and insights into assessment. The text is written for a graduate and undergraduate audience and aims to promote a thoughtful, well-informed approach to assessment and critical awareness of issues which arise out of practice.
Download or read book Understanding and Applying Assessment in Education written by Damian Murchan and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2017-04-29 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All teachers are responsible for assessing the children they teach and the outcomes of any assessment are important for individual learners and the wider school. This book is your one-stop-shop for understanding assessment in schools. It covers formative and summative approaches used across primary and secondary education, supporting a balanced overview with policy examples drawn from the UK, Ireland and wider international contexts. Designed as a pragmatic handbook for new teachers and those training to teach, the book discusses key principles of assessment, before providing guidance on developing and carrying out assessment in the classroom, and looking at how assessment information can be used to benefit your teaching and the children you teach.
Download or read book Curricula Examinations and Assessment in Secondary Education in Sub Saharan Africa written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008-02-15 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic and social changes, fast evolution of technology, and the growing importance of Internet services and international communications--all these require secondary education providers to adapt what is taught and learned in schools. However, in Africa the content of secondary curricula is in most cases ill-adapted to 21st century challenges, where young people are mobile, have access to 'more and instant information,' and face health threats such as HIV/AIDS. In addition, implementation problems exist, and the time for instruction is often much less then what is required by the prescribed secondary curriculum. In Africa there is a need to develop a secondary education curriculum adapted to the local economic and social environment, but with international-comparable performance indicators. This study analyzes that challenge: the quality of curricula and assessment, and their development processes in secondary education in Africa against the background of existing contexts, conditions, and ambitions on the one hand and current pedagogical thinking on the other. This World Bank Working Paper was prepared as part of the Secondary Education and Training in Africa (SEIA) initiative which aims to assist countries to develop sustainable strategies for expansion and quality improvements in secondary education and training.
Download or read book The Changing Face of Educational Assessment written by Roger Murphy and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Assessment and the Secondary School Teacher written by Henry Gordon Macintosh and published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Books. This book was released on 1976 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
