The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in MCT2 scores between students who attended a school district that used MSPMS and students who attended a school district that did not use MSPMS. The data for this study were archived and consisted of math and language arts MCT2 scores for two groups of students. The independent variable was the use of MSPMS for progress monitoring and the dependent variable was student scores on the MCT2. All data were analyzed using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) statistical procedure. In this study the 2008-2009 math and language arts MCT2 scores were the covariate. Hypothesis one stated that there was no statistically significant difference in the MCT2 language scores of students in Grades 4-8 in a school district using MSPMS and MCT2 language scores of students in Grades 4-8 in a district not using MSPMS while controlling for pre-test differences. The results of the first hypothesis indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the 2009-2010 language arts MCT2 scores of a school district that used MSPMS and a district that did not use MSPMS. The district that did not use the MSPMS had higher MCT2 Language Arts overall and higher scores in fourth and sixth grades. Hypothesis two stated that there was no statistically significant difference in the MCT2 math scores of students in grades 4-8 in a school district that used the MSPMS and MCT2 math scores of students in grades 4-8 in a district that did not use the MSPMS while controlling for pre-test differences. The results of the second hypothesis indicated that there was not a significant difference in the 2009-2010 math MCT2 scores of the school district that used the MSPMS and the school district that did not use the MSPMS. The district that did not use the MSPMS had higher MCT2 Math scores overall and higher scores in sixth grade. The district that did use the MSPMS had higher MCT2 math scores in eighth grade. Further study should explore larger populations, assessment instruments of different lengths and fidelity of teacher implementation.

A major consideration in this study has been given to the establishment of the criteria by which the soundness of a testing program could be evaluated as its role in the secondary school. This problem was limited to the planning and administering of a progressive and comprehensive long-range testing program designed to meet the needs and problems common to most school administrators within the economic limits of a small high school. It was not the purpose of this study to anticipate the problems peculiar to particular teachers, high schools, or localities. However, the testing program if properly directed will result in the formation of subsidiary testing programs undertaken by particular teachers or groups of teachers for the purpose of throwing light on the specific problems raised by a large general testing program.

This thesis is an analysis of certain factors associated with school progress of students of the graduating class of the Hillsboro Junior High School for 1940. The study is limited to considering the effect of age, attendance, environment, and economic status on progress during four years that these students attended junior high school.

Thesis (M.Tech. (Information Technology, Faculty of Applied and Computer Sciences))--Vaal University of Technology, 2006 / The sole purpose of a test is to make a measurement. Assessment is very much a process of measurement, whether the outcome is used for baseline, diagnostic, formative or summative purposes. When measurement is taken, in whatever form, a score is obtained. The score that is obtained forms the important part of assessment, because this score determines the outcome of the assessment, the decisions that are to be made regarding the student’s progress, curriculum changes and the evaluation of a course as a whole. Although a score is obtained from a test, the analysis thereof is frequently much neglected. The use of computers in education is not a new concept. The first computer application goes back a long way when computers were first used to do psychological testing. It then became clear that computers can be applied to more fields in education, especially in the field of testing. In the early days real progress was slow, since computers were expensive and were only used in large companies. However, the scenario has changed with the widespread availability of personal computers that has enabled educators to focus on the appropriate role of computerisation in the development, administration, scoring and interpretation of tests. The main objective of this study is to show the major advantage of using computers as a comprehensive assessment tool and to demonstrate the ability to construct and ‘bank’ test items to subsequently produce a standardised test. An added advantage was the computer’s ability to administer tests to students and manage student progress records. The research findings indicate that a Comprehensive Computer-Assisted Assessment Tool (CCAT) has the potential to contribute to the enhancement of assessment and that it can enable educators to prepare valid, reliable and fair test items which were more difficult and time-consuming without technology.

Doctor Educationis / Three questions are central to this thesis: First, can the practice of teaching be made safe from luck through the controlling power of knowledge and reason? Second, even if it can be made safe from luck, should it be? Third, if it is neither possible nor desirable to exclude luck from teaching, what knowledge and personal qualities will put practitioners in the strongest position to face the contingencies of luck and, more especially, to face those conflicts which arise as a consequence of circumstances beyond the practitioner's control? Martha Nussbaum's account of luck and ethics in Greek philosophy and tragedy prompts the questions and provides, with Aristotle, many of the conceptual tools for answering them; Thomas Nagel's work on moral luck provides the categories for a more refined account of luck and its place in teaching. With respect to the first two questions, I argue that as a human practice teaching is open to the vicissitudes of fortune and cannot be made safe from luck, except at the expense of its vitality. Like other human practices, teaching is mutable, indeterminate and particular. Both its primary and secondary agents (teachers and pupils) and the practice itself are vulnerable to luck in four categories: constitutive, circumstantial, causal and consequential. But teaching is not just a matter of luck; it is a public practice in which some people are put into the hands of others for specific purposes, usually at public expense. If we have no way of holding practitioners accountable for their actions, the practice loses credibility. Any money or trust put into it is simply a gamble. For these and other reasons, the drive to exclude luck from practice is strong. Yet strong luck-diminishment projects are themselves a threat to the vitality of the practice. During the twentieth century two strong luck-diminishment projects have been especially detrimental to teaching: one rooted in the science of management, the other in the empirical sciences. Both have resulted in a proliferation of unfruitful and often trivial research projects, to misconceived programmers of teacher education, to distorted notions of knowledge and excellence in teaching, and to self-defeating and impoverished practice. Luck-diminishment projects rooted in logic are more or less threatening to vital practice, depending on how far they are committed to instrumental reasoning and a science of measurement. These are blunt and controversial claims. A central task of the thesis is to refine and defend them. The refinement proceeds by way of a contrastive analysis of strong luck-diminishment projects and others which are more responsive to the indeterminacy of practice. With respect to the final question, I argue that there are at least three sets of necessary conditions for a flourishing practice in the face of luck. One concerns what Aristotle calls the virtues of intellect and character. Central among these are practical rationality (conceived non-instrumentally), situational appreciation, and the knowledge required for an intelligent pursuit of the definitive ends of teaching. A second set concerns enabling institutions. A third concerns the kind of community best able to nurture those qualities necessary for vital and excellent practice. All three sets are themselves vulnerable to reversal. Keeping the practice of teaching alive and ensuring that it remains true to its definitive ends is thus a matter of sustained struggle.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between effective school characteristics and norm referenced standardized test scores in American-style international schools. In contrast to schools in traditional effective schools research, international schools typically have middle to high SES families, and display average to above average achievement. Eleven effective school characteristics were identified and correlated with standardized test scores for grades 4, 6, and 8 and high school SAT scores. Data was gathered from an online teacher questionnaire designed for this study. All eleven characteristics were present in high performing international schools while frequent analysis of student progress, high academic expectations and positive school environment were more prominent. Positive school environment, high academic expectations, strong instructional leadership and cultural diversity were chosen as important characteristics of an effective international school. Learning time is maximized was the only characteristic that was significantly correlated with achievement and only in grades 4, 6 and 8. There was no statistically significant relationship found between norm referenced test scores and the aggregate effective school characteristics score.