Richard J. Shavelson – författare

Research on education has come into the political spotlight as the demand grows for reliable and credible information for the guidance of policy and practice in the education reform environment. Many debates among the education research community feature questions concerning the nature of evidence and these questions have also appeared in broader policy and practice arenas. Inquiry has generally, over the past years, created bodies of scientific knowledge that have profound implications for education. Dramatic advances in understanding how people learn, how young children acquire early reading skills, and how to design and evaluate educational and psychological measurements is a good example of this. However, the highly contextualized nature of education and the wide range of disciplinary perspectives that rely on it have made the identification of reducible, generalizable principles difficult and slow to achieve. Due to this, the U.S. Department of Education's National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board (NERPPB) has asked the NRC to establish a study committee to consider the scientific underpinnings of research in education.The committee consists of members with expertise in statistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy of science, history of education, economics, chemistry, biology, and education practice. The committee worked with the three questions in mind: What are the principles of scientific quality in education research?, How can research-based knowledge in education cumulate?, and How can a federal research agency promote and protect scientific quality in the education research it supports?. A workshop was held on March 7-8, 2001 that was organized into three main sessions: Supporting Scientific Quality at the Federal level, The Interface of Research and Practice in Education, and Evidence and Inference. Science, Evidence, and Inference in Education: Report of a Workshop summarizes this workshop through these three ideas. The report also includes what the committee plans to do next, the workshop agenda, and information on the workshop's participants and speakers.

Researchers, historians, and philosophers of science have debated the nature of scientific research in education for more than 100 years. Recent enthusiasm for "evidence-based" policy and practice in educationa "now codified in the federal law that authorizes the bulk of elementary and secondary education programsa "have brought a new sense of urgency to understanding the ways in which the basic tenets of science manifest in the study of teaching, learning, and schooling. Scientific Research in Education describes the similarities and differences between scientific inquiry in education and scientific inquiry in other fields and disciplines and provides a number of examples to illustrate these ideas. Its main argument is that all scientific endeavors share a common set of principles, and that each fielda "including education researcha "develops a specialization that accounts for the particulars of what is being studied. The book also provides suggestions for how the federal government can best support high-quality scientific research in education.

"A must for teachers doing hands-on science! Straightforward and user-friendly for even the beginning teacher."Debby West, Science Teacher,Medea Middle SchoolOak Park, California"I wish I′d had this book when I started teaching 12 years ago." Dave Jelinek, ResearcherPh.D. Candidate If you want to make sure your students are learning, you must somehow measure their progress. But how can you do that in a science program where the students "construct knowledge" for themselves instead of memorizing facts? Brown and Shavelson show you exactly what to do in this useful guide to science performance assessment. This book helps you answer these questions: Why should you use performance assessments for your hands-on science program? What can you "measure" that you can′t just observe? How can you score the responses to give meaning in a grading context? Which performance assessment will work best for your (and your students′) purposes? Find out which kinds of assessments and scoring systems work best for your classroom. You′ll learn how to measure precisely what your students know and understand about the science they′re learning. The step-by-step instructions here will help you choose assessment methods that provide reliable, valid, measurable evaluations of your students′ performance. The authors give you samples of completed score forms to help you assess your own classroom findings. They also include model assessments that look and feel so much like regular, hands-on science curricula that your students won′t even realize they′re being tested! If you teach hands-on science, or if you plan to start, this book has practical information you can use right now.

Accrediting boards, the federal government, and state legislatures are now requiring a greater level of accountability from higher education. However, current accountability practices, including accreditation, No Child Left Behind, and performance reporting are inadequate to the task. If wielded indiscriminately, accountability can actually do more harm than good. This innovative work looks broadly at how accountability is being considered by campuses, accrediting boards, higher education organizations, and governments in the US and abroad. It explores how new demands for accountability and new technologies are changing the way student learning is assessed.The author, one of the most respected assessment researchers in the nation, provides a framework for assessing student learning and discusses historical and contemporary debates in the field. He details new directions in assessment, such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment he helped develop, analyzes exemplary campus assessment programs, and proposes considerations necessary for designing successful accountability systems.

Accrediting boards, the federal government, and state legislatures are now requiring a greater level of accountability from higher education. However, current accountability practices, including accreditation, No Child Left Behind, and performance reporting are inadequate to the task. If wielded indiscriminately, accountability can actually do more harm than good. This innovative work looks broadly at how accountability is being considered by campuses, accrediting boards, higher education organizations, and governments in the US and abroad. It explores how new demands for accountability and new technologies are changing the way student learning is assessed.The author, one of the most respected assessment researchers in the nation, provides a framework for assessing student learning and discusses historical and contemporary debates in the field. He details new directions in assessment, such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment he helped develop, analyzes exemplary campus assessment programs, and proposes considerations necessary for designing successful accountability systems.

Two of the most interesting conceptual turns in Richard E. Snow's thinking called for: a broadening of the concept of aptitude to include not only cognitive processes, but also affective and cognative processes as essential for understanding academic performance and learning; and an exploration of the possibility that individual differences in learning and achievement emerge from dynamic person-situation transactions that unfold over time. The articles in this special issue address these "big ideas" through the lens of a study of high school students' achievement in science.