This study established nine categories which taken together define the open classroom. Three open classrooms at the grade levels four to six were used for this study. To gather the data the classrooms were observed, literature was reviewed, interviews were taken, and audio and video equipment was used. The data was then analyzed, and the…

Eighty-one fourth grade students were administered tests, tasks, and observations to investigate the relationship between IQ, rates of learning, scores on standardized achievement tests, and results of classroom observation. There was a substantial relationship between IQ, standardized tests, and rates of learning, but not classroom observation.…

This study was a secondary analysis of data collected by staff of the Program for Complex Instruction (PCI). The purpose of the larger study was to investigate the effect on learning gains of having students know the content and performance standards on which they will be judged as well as the effect of using evaluation criteria. This study looks…

The research reported includes a profile of all sixty ThinkAbout programs with respect to demographic balance, personal/social behaviors portrayed by major characters, and value-laden content. The profile is a summation across a 5-stage content analysis which was integrated with other formative evaluation techniques in the three year ThinkAbout…

Students at grades four and five were administered a writing assessment that was developed to correspond to the California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) writing tasks at grade four. Teachers were trained to score the CLAS-like tasks according to the rubric developed by the State for CLAS. In addition, 164 students at three schools in the…

This study explores the variables included on Kentucky's School Report Card used to report information about individual schools to parents, legislators, educators, community leaders, and educational researchers. Data used for this exploratory, descriptive study were obtained through the Kentucky Department of Education Web site. The study focused…

Student science journals were evaluated as an assessment tool to demonstrate student performance throughout the course and the opportunities students have to learn science in their classrooms. The study was conducted with 163 fifth graders from 7 classrooms, although 1 teacher did not collect student journals, reducing the sample size. Close and…

This study developed a method to assess group process in a collaborative problem-solving situation. Participants were 32 fifth- and sixth-grade students. Students in seven collaborative groups worked on a two-part mathematics problem first individually, then in groups, and finally individually again. Groups engaging in behaviors that facilitated…

Two studies investigated upper elementary school students' informal understanding of sampling issues in the context of interpreting and evaluating survey results. The specific focus was on the children's evaluation of sampling methods and means of drawing conclusions from multiple surveys. In Study 1, 17 children were individually interviewed to…

The validity of a dynamic assessment interview approach to the measurement of metacomponential (executive level) cognitive processing in 48 children aged 8 to 9 years was studied. The interview instrument apparently measured both content knowledge and metacomponential processing. Implications for study of young children's cognition are discussed.…

This study was designed to identify differences in the neurological functioning of three groups of children with developmental dyslexia and to assess whether any of the groups were characterized by a particular pattern of neurological soft signs. Subjects were 88 children, aged 11-14, who were identified as developmentally dyslexic. The children…

The development of content analysis instruments sensitive to the instructional, social, and value-laden content of a television series, was necessary because of formative evaluation needs to establish the congruity of the actual program content with the intended content and to assess the hidden curriculum. Because issues ranged widely, four…

This paper discusses methodological difficulties in studying metacognition and proposes a new multi-method technique for assessing student metacognitive behavior. The major aim of the study was to develop and apply a strategy for assessing metacognition within the context of mathematical problem solving. Data were collected from 30 year-6 students…

A longitudinal study of growth in reading ability employed two new indicators of print exposure that use a checklist-with-foils logic and that have very brief administration times. Subjects, 52 boys and 46 girls from 4 different fourth- and fifth-grade classes in a religiously-affiliated private school, completed the Title Recognition Test (TRT)…

A study investigated whether a teacher-pupil conference could serve as a vehicle for gathering data from children on the self-assessment of learning. The "Worksamples Interview" (a 10-item questionnaire that focuses on different dimensions of children's work) was used with 93 children in Years 4, 5, and 6 in one school in a large city in…