'Towards a Standardized Examinations System' [antikvár]

Foreword This report is one of a series of eight Final Reports, giving a full account of the results of the joint Cito-NIPE project on standardized examinations for secondary education. The first of these contains a general survey of the aims, activities and results of the project. Five reports deal with the school subjects for which tests have been developed in the project, one deals with a validity survey, carried out for mother-tongue education, and there is one report on psychometric issues. International cooperation in the field of education is an exciting affair. It is by no means an easy job. It requires the ability to fathom the educational cultures of the other, the inventiveness to deal with unexpected situations and the patience to reach common goals without forcing viewpoints on the other. All these skills came into play during the three years of cooperation between the Hungarian National Institute of Public Education at Budapest and the Dutch National Institute for Educational Measurement at Arnhem. There were a number of aspects which made it very worthwhile to be involved in such a project: the exchange of knowledge and understanding, the resulting products and, last but not least, the establishment of invaluable ties between persons and institutions. The joint efforts have been very fruitful, as may become clear from this and other reports. The participants of the project put much energy into jointly working out new approaches in objective assessment of educational achievement. There have been many instances that all their creativity was needed to overcome unforseen problems. We would like to thank them for this and for the pleasure we experienced working with such dedicated colleagues. Steven Bakker, project coordinator for Cito Zsuzsa Mátrai, project coordinator for NIPE