A study investigated the relationships among nine instruments designed to measure clinical knowledge and performance in a third-year surgery clerkship. Results suggest that various types of measures are necessary for broad evaluation of clinical performance. Instruments clustered into two groups: measures of medical knowledge and clinical…

A study explored the responses of medical students, resident physicians, and experienced physicians to 12 vignettes describing hypothetical patients to determine the relationship between clinical experience and susceptibility to bias in treatment decisions resulting from presentation of possible outcomes. Framing bias was most evident in the…

A study assessed the effectiveness of medical resident training programs during 1983-88 by evaluating students' certification scores and comparing them to the program's evaluation of students' clinical competence. Results are reported and analyzed for top-rated, university-affiliated, and non-university-affiliated programs, focusing on trends over…

This paper describes Project SPECIAL TOPIC, which developed a preservice graduate training program at Central Michigan University for preparing related services personnel in the area of school counseling with special emphasis on special education needs. Two complete training cycles have been completed with a total of 22 full-time graduate students…

Argues that teaching must become a profession--entailing both expertise and relative autonomy--if public schools are to improve. Outlines elements of professionalism and proposes means to professionalize teaching. (MCG)

Six separate studies were conducted using judgments from academic and practitioner experts to determine the knowledge structure of the Certified Financial Planner Professional Education Program (i.e., the organization of discipline topics and the relationships among them). The program consists of six sequential financial planning knowledge…

The diagnostic discourse of medical students and physicians in thinking-aloud protocols on paper cases was analyzed for evidence of semantic structure. Results show that structural semantics can be used to distinguish various levels of mental processing among novices as well as between novices and professionals. (MSE)

An interactive multimedia instructional program was developed at Kansas State University to meet the need of rural social work students for specialized training in child welfare issues. The program consists of 10 multimedia interactive computer-based instructional modules that focus on child welfare issues in generalist social work practice. The…

Various parallel forms of the NTE (National Teacher Examinations) Test of Professional Knowledge (NTETPK) have been administered to examinees aspiring to initial teacher certification since 1982. To confirm that recent reported scores are comparable to those from earlier forms, the stability of the score scale was studied using section…

Questions are raised about conventional notions of social work education by introducing field-derived data of how social workers use knowledge in everyday worklife, particularly in the field. Two typical social work units (public and private) totalling 24 social workers were the main foci for data collection, and additional subjects and social…

The congruence of expectations of industrial managers concerning the preparation of college graduates and what university professional schools are attempting to provide was explored. The focus was the aerospace and banking industries. Interviews were conducted with 24 senior executives from 13 corporations to determine what industry requires of…

The effort to make the Connecticut Elementary Education Certification Examination (EECE) reflect the skills and knowledge essential to successful beginning teaching is described. This instrument is planned as part of an assessment system being created by the Connecticut State Department of Education. The first element of the program is a basic…

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature and degree of differences in expert versus novice knowledge structures, both before and after training, when judging the similarity of multiple-choice test items within a statistics and test theory (STT) domain. Subjects were employees of the Testing Division of the New York State Department of…

A study conducted for the Tennessee State Department of Education by Memphis State University addressed two objectives with respect to the Professional School Service Personnel endorsements for initial licensure for non-teaching professional personnel: to determine the validity of the National Teacher Examination (NTE) Core Battery tests for…

Past research and educational efforts in gerontological nursing have revealed that nursing care of the older person has received a low priority by practicing nurses and nursing students. To measure registered nurses' changes in knowledge about aging, nine registered nurses (mean age, 30.7 years, mean number of years nursing experience, 6.9)…