Author Profiles Norman C. Bettis Jill Freund Thomas Fredrick H. Walk Joseph L. White John C. Craig Introduction Standards & Skills Assessment Items Scoring Criteria Student Samples Author Profiles References

Norman C. Bettis, Ph.D. Norman Bettis is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Illinois State University. He is the state coordinator of the Illinois Geographic Alliance, past president of both the National Council for Geographic Education (1991) and the Illinois Geographical Society (1984), former co-chair of the 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Geography Framework Planning Committee, and co-author of the 1994 NAEP Geography Assessment Framework and Geography Assessment and Exercise Specification. In addition, he has worked with Educational Testing Service as an item writer and developer of the 1994 NAEP assessment instruments in geography. Between 1992 and 1994, he co-chaired the Geography Education Standards Project (GESP) and co-authored Geography for Life: National Geography Standards, 1994. At the state level, he served on the Social Science Standards Assessment Committee, co-authoring the Social Science Section of the Illinois Learning Standards published in 1997. He has been a member of the ISBE Social Science Assessment Team for many years and has contributed geography test items for the Illinois Goals Assessment Program (IGAP). In 1988, he received the Distinguished Geographic Educator award of the Illinois Geographical Society. In 1991, the National Geographic Society honored him with their Distinguished Geography Educator award.