This quantitative investigation examined the influence of low and high self-efficacy on candidate teacher academic performance in a foreign language teaching methodology course through testing the speculation that high self-efficacy levels would improve pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK). Positivism guided the research design at the levels of…

IN THIS REPORT THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS (UFT) ANALYZES SPECIFIC DATA FROM THE CENTER FOR URBAN EDUCATION'S (CUE) NEGATIVE EVALUATION OF NEW YORK CITY'S MORE EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS (MES) PROGRAM AND CHARGES THAT CUE'S CONCLUSIONS ARE INVALID. THE UFT MAINTAINS THAT SINCE 18 OF THE 21 MES WERE FORMER SPECIAL SERVICE (SS) SCHOOLS, CUE SHOULD HAVE…

The wheel is shown to be (a) more reliable; (b) less susceptible to patterning of responses, while (c) the influence of ordering of scales on responses is reduced. (Author)

Paper reports on the use of a technique of item writing and item keying in personality scale construction which overcomes the drawbacks, while maximizing the advantages of unit response weighting. (Author)

Results indicate that the test-retest stability of the DDST is quite satisfactory for a screening test. (Authors/MB)

Describes an investigation of the relationship between the levels of interlinker consistency obtained among a group of full-text databases in which internodal links were inserted, and the effectiveness of searches carried out in those databases. Topics include interindexer consistency and retrieval system evaluation. (Author/LRW)

Reports on a project which developed a measure of levels of difficulty of reference questions handled by the California Interlibrary Reference Referral Network, and identified indicative measures that would reliably stand for the concept of difficulty. Correlations of predictive difficulty and actual difficulty are discussed. (nine references)…

The effects of two different approaches to training community nurses in patient self-care were evaluated. In an intensive workshop, 36 nurses were trained, and 19 of them received further personal guidance 11 times during a 6-month period. Their performance was assessed before the educational intervention, after the workshop, and after the…

This paper evaluates two measurement instruments with regard to their ability to measure children's and young people's attitudes toward animals. The instruments are the Fireman Test (in which children are asked to identify those few animals and/or material possessions which a fireman should try to save during a fire) and the Good Ideas and Bad…

The Supervisory Behavior Description Questionnaire (SBDQ), Form 2, is a modified semantic differential scale using five pairs of bipolar adjectives to describe supervisory behavior. Form 2 of the instrument was field tested to determine which supervisory behaviors 60 graduate students in education perceived as satisfying or motivating. These…

This study compares various item option scoring methods with respect to coefficient alpha and a concurrent validity coefficient. The scoring methods under consideration were: (1) formula scoring, (2) a priori scoring, (3) empirical scoring with an internal criterion, and (4) two modifications of formula scoring. The study indicates a clear…

This study further develops the Diagnostic Survey for Leadership Improvement (DSLI) and determines its reliability and validity. Split-half estimates of the DSLI's reliability were computed. These estimates came in terms of the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients that were then corrected by the Spearman-Brown Prophesy Formula. The…

The Performance Review, Analysis, and Improvement System for Educators (PRAISE) is a formative evaluation instrument designed to improve the performance of school principals. The system appears to be reliable and valid and is flexible enough to accommodate the needs of a variety of schools. Sample items and categories of the instrument include…

The Anchor Test Study provides a method for translating a pupil's score on any one of eight widely used standardized reading tests for Grades 4, 5, and 6 to a corresponding score on any of the other seven tests, as well as furnishing new nationally representative norms for each of the eight tests. In addition, the study presents new estimates of…