The study investigated the effects of three types of evaluation on preservice teachers' performance, knowledge and attitudes related to writing lesson plans that incorporate technology. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three treatment conditions: teacher-evaluation, self-evaluation or peer-evaluation. All groups completed three class periods of instruction on writing lesson plans, then each subject submitted his/her draft lesson plan. The drafts were evaluated by assigned evaluators (teacher, self or peer), who provided scores and written feedback on a 15-item rubric. Students then revised their lesson plans into final form. All three treatment groups improved their lesson plans significantly from draft version to final version, with the teacher-evaluation group showing significantly greater improvement and writing significantly better final lesson plans than each of the other two groups. Teacher-evaluation and self-evaluation groups had significantly higher scores on a knowledge-based posttest than the peer-evaluation group. Several suggestions are discussed for making further improvements in the self-evaluation and peer-evaluation processes.

This study was designed to investigate the effects of two instructional approaches (whole-task versus part-task) and two levels of learner prior knowledge (lower versus higher) on learner acquisition and transfer of a complex cognitive skill. Participants were 51 undergraduate pre-service teachers. In the part-task condition, a complex skill (preparing a grade book using Excel) was decomposed into a series of smaller tasks, each of which was demonstrated and practiced separately. In the whole-task condition, which was based on the 4C/ID-model (van Merriënboer 1997), learners were exposed to the entire complex skill from the beginning of the instruction and were required to practice performing a series of whole tasks throughout the unit. Results indicated that the whole-task group performed significantly better than the part-task group on a skill acquisition test and a transfer test. Possible reasons for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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This study investigated the effects of teacher evaluation and the combination of teacher evaluation and student self-evaluation on student performance and attitudes. Participants in the study were 189 Latvian high school students and their six teachers.The six teachers were assigned to one of three treatment conditions: (a) no evaluation, (b) teacher evaluation, and (c) self-evaluation plus teacher evaluation. All groups completed a 12-lesson instructional program on how to conduct experiments and produce research reports. Students in the teacher-evaluation group received teacher evaluation on their initial research reports. Students in the self-plus-teacher evaluation group self-evaluated their reports and received teacher evaluation on them. The no-evaluation group received no formal evaluation instructions.Students in the teacher-evaluation and the self-plus-teacher evaluation groups received significantly higher ratings on their final projects than those in the no-evaluation group. However, the no-evaluation group had more favorable attitudes toward the program than the other two groups, while the self-plus-teacher evaluation group was significantly more confident of their ability to independently conduct future research experiments.Classroom evaluation can have a powerful impact on student performance and motivation (Crooks, 1988;Natriello, 1987). In his review, Crooks cited evidence that evaluation can provide students with knowledge of results and corrective feedback, help students monitor their own progress, and influence students' continuing motivation and their perceptions of their self-efficacy as learners. From a review of 250 articles on classroom assessment, Black and William (1998) reported positive effects of formative evaluation on performance of students of all ages and ability levels. They used the term formative evaluation to refer to the evaluation of instruction for the purpose of improving student performance, rather than to evaluation of an instructional program for the purpose of improving it during its developmental or formative stage (Scriven, 1967).Teacher evaluation of student work is the most common form of classroom evaluation cited as having positive effects on student performance and attitudes. Cardelle-Elawar and Corno (1985) found that elementary school student performance and attitudes toward mathematics improved when their teachers provided written feedback on their homework several times a week. Thomas et al. (1993) reported a positive correlation between the amount of teacher feedback on tests, quizzes and homework assignments and student performance in high school biology courses. Page (1958) found in his study involving 74 secondary school teachers that a brief written comment on objective examinations significantly improved student performance when compared to no comment at all.Other studies have shown no effect of teacher Page's (1958) study and reviewed 12 other replication studies, concluding that teacher comments had little or no effect on student performance. Stor...

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