TITLE The Evaluation of Student Achievement: Preliminary Analyses in Modelling Teacher Decisions.

This study focused on one task that is characteristic of teacher responsibilities and activities in the school: the evaluation of student achievement. It involved more than 100 preservice elementary school teachers who assessed the performance of 3 simulated students on 6 language arts tasks. Information collected included the marks assigned to students on various submitted assignments and tests and the journal entries of the student teachers. The study continues an investigation into the procedures and information bases preservice teachers use in making judgments about student achievement.'The marks and grades that each student teacher generated were summarized and compared across the three simulated students to determine the extent to which the student teachers viewed their three students as distinct in their achievement in language arts. Study findings support the view that evaluation of student achievement is not a simple process. The data show that final marks are not the same thing as final letter grades, althoug