This article, the first of a two-part series, catalogs teaching innovations presented at the 2013 Association for Business Communication (ABC) Annual Convention, New Orleans. They were presented during the My Favorite Assignment session. The 11 Favorite Assignments featured here offer the reader a variety of learning experiences including…

This volume includes 3 papers based on presentations at a workshop on communicating assessment information to particular audiences, held at Educational Testing Service (ETS) on November 4th, 2010, to explore some issues that influence score reports and new advances that contribute to the effectiveness of these reports. Jessica Hullman, Rebecca…

Quality Counts 2010 is the 14th edition of "Education Week's" annual report card on American public education as viewed through the lens of the states' education policies and outcomes. As in the past, this year's edition is built on twin foundations: (1) the detailed data collection and analysis of the Editorial Projects in Education…

Quality Counts 2009 is the 13th edition of "Education Week's" series of annual report cards tracking state education policies and outcomes. Drawing heavily on data from the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center's annual state policy survey, the report once again offers a comprehensive state-by-state analysis of key indicators…

Presents eight winners of School Planning & Management's Community Relations Contest that produced ideas that other school districts can use to strengthen community/school coexistence. Papers cover such topics as improving communication between stakeholders, connecting with parents, and keeping the community informed during construction projects.…

Four conference papers on ethics in physical activity research are presented: (1) "Ethical Issues in Human Research" (W. Kroll); (2) "Ethical Issues in Animal Research" (K. Matt); (3) "Oh What a Tangled Web We Have" (M. Safrit); and (4) "Ethical Issues in Conducting and Reporting Research: A Reaction to Kroll,…

Includes nine articles that suggest ways to improve communication in junior and senior high school libraries. Highlights include how to communicate effectively with principals and other administrators, students, teachers and other staff members, and the community; types of information that administrators need; annual reports; newsletters; and…

Journal editors respond to criticisms of reliance on statistical significance in research reporting. Joel R. Levin ("Journal of Educational Psychology") defends its use, whereas William D. Schafer ("Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development") emphasizes the distinction between statistically significant and important. William Asher…

Ten papers are presented that discuss new developments in school effectiveness research from an international perspective. Three papers discuss factors that determine school effectiveness, and one paper considers the analysis of data. The remainder of the papers report on empirical investigations of school effectiveness. (SLD)

Three articles on evaluation in the Federal government describe a decline in budget and staff support, narrowing of the agenda to internal management issues, and the subordination of evaluation to other functions. Issues for the future of Federal government evaluation are discussed. (SLD)

Six papers on applications of item response theory are presented. Applications involved include item bias, criterion-referenced measurement problems, test score equating, computerized ability testing, information processing approaches, unidimensional binary responses, multidimensional and polychotomous responses, and estimation and goodness of…

This review examines research that has investigated the complexities of the associations among families, schools, and children's school outcomes. General categories of studies are (1) social-arithmetic environmental research; (2) family and school structural characteristics; (3) the environmental press of families and schools; and (4)…

Five papers on research related to learning and instruction discuss the following: subjective competence and self-assessment; development of quantitative-relational abilities from childhood to adolescence; detecting functional relations in a computerized learning environment; developmental patterns and individual differences in word-search…

Provides summary reports of 81 innovative approaches to medical education in the areas of program management and assessment, admission and student-support programs, computer applications, preclinical and clinical course integration, development of professional skills and values, introduction to clinical medicine, community-based experiences,…