The purpose of the study was to determine if teaching a discrete course in a constructivist learning environment could reduce the level of anxiety towards Information Technology (IT) among pre-service teachers who perceived themselves as IT competent (Group 1) and IT incompetent (Group 2). The study also sought to investigate if the anxiety level…

Large-scale educational assessments such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) sample examinees to whom an exam will be administered. In most situations the sampling design is not a simple random sample and must be accounted for in the estimating model. After reviewing the current operational estimation procedure for NAEP, this…

A hierarchical latent regression model is suggested to estimate nested and nonnested relationships in complex samples such as found in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The proposed model aims at improving both parameters and variance estimates via a two-level hierarchical linear model. This model falls naturally within the…

A study examined the effect of role playing on persuasive letters written by 84 fourth and 70 eighth graders. Role playing was defined as improvised, unrehearsed oral interaction in a simulated context. Randomly selected students from 11 comparable heterogeneous classes in a middle-class suburb wrote to their school principals on three different…

In order to validate the methodology used in the study by Jose-Marie Griffith and Donald W. King that is reported in "New Directions in Library and Information Science Education," this study examined the management competencies of middle managers in 11 large academic research libraries in the Midwest. The goals of the project were to provide a…

In 1988, opinion surveys were administered to 5 different respondent groups at each of the 15 pilot sites participating in North Carolina's Career Development Program (CDP) for educators. Five separate questionnaires were developed for the following respondent groups: (1) teachers; (2) principals and assistant principals; (3) central office staff…

This two-part guide to the evaluation of student progress in French language discusses both theoretical and practical implications. The first part consists of seven sections: (1) student evaluation; (2) the terminology of evaluation; (3) the objectives of evaluation and measurement inference; (4) the characteristics of a good learning objective,…

To determine whether Olivet Nazarene University's standard freshman writing course requirements measure favorably with those of the majority of the 75 Christian College Coalition (CCC) members, a study compared the textbooks, papers, activities, and evaluation procedures required by each institution. Stephen Witte's "National Survey of…

A study examined the effects of peer evaluation on writing fluency and writing attitudes. Subjects, 177 ninth grade students from seven classrooms, were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Subjects in both groups wrote a first draft of a paper. Those in the experimental group then received peer evaluation training and rewrote…

The effectiveness of Project Jericho, a 1-year program designed to improve the parole success rate of male California Youth Authority wards living in group homes, was assessed. Each group home had a resource developer who helped parolees find jobs, enroll in school or training, and establish links to the community. Jericho parolees (N=53) were…

A study examined the effects of "round robin reading" (RRR) as an instructional procedure in social studies. Specifically, the study asked whether an oral textbook presentation had a significant effect on learning social studies material and if grade level, reading level, social studies knowledge, and gender significantly affected the…

Examined were the cognitive and social play behaviors of hearing impaired kindergarten children. Relations probed included those between: (1) children's social and cognitive play and sign-based or oral-aural-based classroom instruction; (2) children's overall efforts to communicate and type of class instruction; and (3) the quality of children's…

The effectiveness of the inductive instructional method of general case programming was compared to the deductive approach of rule learning, in attempting to facilitate generalized learning and maintenance of a community living skill for adults with mental retardation. The impact of functional ability on the type of instruction was also assessed.…

This study examined the extent to which categorical differences exist in the instructional environment for students with mild handicaps. Subjects were 30 learning-disabled, 32 emotionally/behaviorally disturbed, 30 educable mentally retarded, and 30 nonhandicapped students in grades 2-4. Twenty-four special education teachers and 54 regular…

Students' perceptions concerning quality in education, the norm-reference approach to student evaluation, and the problem of assessing how much learning has occurred are discussed. To one sample of students, quality meant desirable institutional characteristics and outcomes concerning their own learning and development. Institutions are likely to…