Problem solving plays an important role in mathematics and should have a prominent role in the mathematics education. The term "problem solving" refers to mathematics tasks that have the potential to provide intellectual challenges for enhancing students' mathematical understanding and development. In addition, the contextual problem…

Describes procedure to measure a new course's ability to meet standards in three areas: student acceptance, student gains, and student comprehension. It has been used over three years to test the acceptability of 31 courses which contain more than 200 videotape presentations, and thousands of pages of print materials. (Author/JEG)

Describes the Philadelphia Public Schools' formative testing program, used to diagnose students' difficulties under mastery learning, especially in mathematics. Discusses in turn the classroom, school, and district aspects of the program and summarizes the program's essential features. A full-page chart outlining aids and hindrances to formative…

The impact of male and female college students' grades, achievement, and attitudes of the respective "correction" procedures used in Bloom- and Keller-type mastery learning strategies was investigated. Findings indicate periodic corrections, using Bloom's strategy, may improve students' ability to apply course material. (Author/BJG)

Addresses the four questions raised by Yelon about use of pretests with instruction--should I pretest; on what should I pretest; how should I pretest; how should I adjust to results--and answers them from the perspective of instructional designers conducting formative evaluations to improve quality of instruction under development. (MBR)

Examines two common errors in evaluation and ways to circumvent them. The first error is faulty pretesting or diagnostic evaluation. The second is failure to monitor student progress and plan instruction in relation to the specified learning goals. (SJL)

The report describes the development of a project which produced an integrated set of materials on formative evaluation that are appropriate for use in graduate training, research and development settings, and public school personnel use. The objectives of the project were: (1) to identify relevant data sources for formative evaluation and to…

There is evidence that pre-tests can have orienting and motivational and teaching functions - in addition to the sought-for testing function. There is also evidence that these additional functions can be either general or specific. The present paper contributes to the ongoing debate by discussing the issues involved in the context of a series of…

Discusses the advantages of using a pretest in introductory agronomy courses. Provides a pretest that has been developed for use in an introductory crops course taught at Southern Illinois University. Includes 25 definitions, 17 true-false and multiple choice questions, and 6 short answer questions. (TW)

When attempts are made to utilize the procedures generally accepted in evaluation to look at something as vague as the term "exercise", confusion becomes compounded exponentially. It is important that the fundamental elements of movement, the laws of motion, and the basic movement of skills be taught to everyone. If there is a need to know what…

Learner Verification and Revision (LVR) has been part of Florida's instructional materials adoption process since 1974, when state statutes required textbook publishers to provide written proof that their materials were revised based on student feedback before publication. Publishers were also required to collect student data and make revisions…

As a step in combining three of the Elementary and Secondary Education surveys of the National Center for Education Statistics to produce one database linking local education agencies, schools, and teachers, the merged procedures and collections forms were pretested. Different methods were tested by splitting the pretest sample of 220 public…

Although actual or projected satisfaction with parenting is important in determining whether a couple will become parents and how large their family will be, only minimal research has assessed parental satisfaction. The Cleminshaw-Guidubaldi Parent Satisfaction Scale, a 50-item Likert-type instrument designed to measure components of satisfaction…

A parent training model utilizing rural Utah (Box Elder County) parents whose children had been identified by their teachers as among the lowest three in their classes in reading or mathematics performance examined the academic performance of 150 students in grades 2-6 derived from 9 elementary schools (5 schools in the treatment group and 4 in…