In Flanders, open admission into higher education has led to heterogeneity in academic preparedness of incoming STEM students. Higher institutions offer low stakes positioning tests these students order help them assess their level starting competences. Due the unique nature tests, little can be inferred about students’ perception tests. this study, we used mixed methods investigate perceptions...

Most students in Japan experience a wide range of language tests in their ten-year long language-learning career. These include tests in different situations, starting with classroom tests which range from short vocabulary tests to long end of term tests. Secondly there are university entrance exams, where the stakes are high. Finally there are optional proficiency tests such as the eiken grade...

PURPOSE Personal narratives are common in children's conversations, recommended as the appropriate genre for early writing by educators, and part of many high-stakes tests, possibly because they tend to be better formed than fictional narratives. However, current practice in the field of speech-language pathology employs fictional narratives in assessment, intervention, and study of children wi...

Why are some behaviors governed by strong social conventions while others are not? We experimentally investigate two factors contributing to the formation of conventions in a game of impure coordination: the continuity of interaction within each round of play (simultaneous vs. real-time) and the stakes of the interaction (high vs. low differences between payoffs). To maximize efficiency and fai...

The key feature problem (KFP) is an innovative assessment format that tests clinical decision making skills by focussing on only the critical steps -- or 'key features' -- of each decision, thereby increasing the number of problems that can be answered in a 3 hour examination. It has been used successfully in The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Examination for Fellowship and i...

In this paper we present a new spell-checking system that utilizes contextual information for automatic correction of non-word misspellings. The system is evaluated with a large corpus of essays written by native and nonnative speakers of English to the writing prompts of high-stakes standardized tests (TOEFL and GRE). We also present comparative evaluations with Aspell and the speller from Mic...

STANDARDS and accountability policies have become increasingly popular strategies among school reformers. In 1984, South Carolina became the first state to introduce a school performance incentive program where schools are ranked on the basis of student test scores and top schools receive financial rewards (Clotfelter & Ladd,1996). Since then many states and districts have implemented policies,...