A class of S.6 students was provided by the author with a learner training activities, peer assessment of individual presentations, and self-assessment of language learning. The author found that peer assessment rating was consistent with teacher assessment rating, and that language learning logs promoted learners' autonomy.

To examine whether greater freedom given to students in choosing their home and class assignments would motivate their learning, the author conducted an experiment in a class of F.3 students, and found that students reacted variously to the choices of assignment.

Based on the self-assessment of a class of S.4 students on their English compositions, the author found that self-assessment benefited learning.

The author reports that after the administration of a test to nine groups of students, three groups were given detailed teachers' explanation with answer key; another three were provided only with an answer key; and the last three did not receive any treatment. Subject groups provided with explanations and an answer key improved drastically in later performance.

The score gains in spelling tests and dictation examinations of the two experimental groups, which were involved in the cross-age and the same-age peer tutoring and one control group, were compared. The author reports that while both experimental groups had higher achievement in spelling tests, only the same-age peer tutoring group improved significantly in dictation examinations.

Ninety university undergraduate students were tested on a number of tasks assessing their recognition of possible and impossible figures, mental rotation, ideational fluency, and self-report artistic and creative characteristics. Scores on the Impossible Figures Task (IFT-14) and the Mental Rotation Test, and self-ratings on the Artistic Characteristics Rating Scale were found to differentiate among Fine Arts students, Architecture students, and students from Arts Faculty disciplines less related to visual-spatial abilities, suggesting that the IFT-14 could be used to assess visual-spatial or visual arts talents. The application of the IFT-14 with the same related measures to a sample of 103 primary and secondary gifted students provided further supporting evidence. Implications of the findings on the development of more sensitive measures for identifying students with visual-spatial or visual arts talents are discussed.
[Copyright of High Ability Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598130802504296]

This paper reports findings from an investigation of the implementation of "assessment for learning" in classroom music instruction in Hong Kong primary schools, focusing on the changes in assessment practice and music teachers' classroom instruction. Qualitative methodology was employed to document the cases of three music teachers. It was found that change in assessment practice in classroom music instruction led to a change in curriculum design which enhanced curricular alignment, as well as change in the mode of instruction which facilitated communication and interaction between teachers and students.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530701644599]

University instructors' classroom assessments play a central role in and inevitably influence their teaching and their students' learning. This paper reports on a comparative interview study conducted in a range of three ESL/EFL university contexts in Canada, Hong Kong and China. Six major aspects of ESL/EFL classroom assessment practices were explored: instructors' assessment planning for the courses they taught, the relative weight given to course work and tests in their instruction, the type of assessment methods (selection vs. supply methods) that they used, the purposes each assessment was used for, the source of each method used, and when they used each method. University instructors were also asked to indicate what they saw as the advantages and disadvantages of the methods they used, and whether they took into account prior student knowledge when making decisions about what assessment methods to use. The findings contribute to a better understanding of ESL/EFL university instructors' classroom assessment practices at the tertiary level in a range of three ESL/EFL university teaching contexts.
[Copyright of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930601122555]