The accuracy of information in a children's nonfiction book is one criterion the seven-member Orbis Pictus Award Committee considers when selecting outstanding children's nonfiction books for the award. The charge of the committee is to consider other criteria as well, including the clarity and coherence of the book's organization, the extent to…

Using data from the final two rounds of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a longitudinal study begun in 2001, this First Look provides a snapshot of the demographic characteristics, reading and mathematics knowledge, fine motor skills, school characteristics, and before- and after-school care arrangements of the cohort…

It is important to be able to describe instructional practices accurately in order to support research on "what works" in education and professional development as a basis for efforts to improve practice. This report describes a project to develop procedures for characterizing classroom practices in mathematics and science on the …

The number of teacher candidates with learning disabilities (LD) has grown over the past several years. Teacher education programs are accountable to produce quality teachers while providing reasonable accommodations that facilitate completion of a degree program. This study investigated accommodations provided to teacher candidates with LD in…

This study examined the factor structure and reliability of a brief but comprehensive measure, the adolescent risk inventory (ARI), designed to assess adolescent risk behaviors and attitudes. Measures assessing demographics and risk behaviors were administered to 134 youth (ages 12-19) in psychiatric treatment. A confirmatory factor analysis of…

This study sought to establish the benefits of an analytic scoring procedure for assessing student performance in doing geometry proofs. Using the cognitive behavior theories of B. Bloom and the theories of J. G. Greeno about geometric knowledge, five criteria were established for assessing performance in proof. After a training session, 3 judges…

This report presents the results of a working meeting to provide guidance to staff at the National Center for Education Statistics on: (1) establishing guidelines for inclusion of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), field tests, research, and development; (2) modifications in the…

The use of constructed response items in large scale standardized testing has been hampered by the costs and difficulties associated with obtaining reliable scores. The advent of expert systems may signal the eventual removal of this impediment. This study investigated the accuracy with which expert systems could score a new, non-multiple choice…

This paper attempts to summarize the conclusions of the major reviews of the literature on student ratings of teaching. It is an update of a paper by the same name published as IDEA Paper No. 20 from the Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development in 1988. Viewing student ratings as data rather than evaluations may help to put them in proper…

The nine-volume Survey Kit is designed to help readers prepare and conduct surveys and become better users of survey results. All the books in the series contain instructional objectives, exercises and answers, examples of surveys in use, illustrations of survey questions, guidelines for action, checklists of "dos and don'ts," and…

The nine-volume Survey Kit is designed to help readers prepare and conduct surveys and become better users of survey results. All the books in the series contain instructional objectives, exercises and answers, examples of surveys in use, illustrations of survey questions, guidelines for action, checklists of "dos and don'ts," and…

The purpose of this study is to establish internal consistency and validity on a survey instrument that has resulted from previous research which examined the perceptions of six teachers as they engaged in the implementation of a nongraded, multiage continuous progress primary program. The need for documentation of student progress was identified…

The literature from 1973-1983 on student ratings of faculty teaching effectiveness is reviewed. Among the consistent findings over the decade are the following: high student rating scale reliability, the limited influence of instructor and student demographic variables on student ratings of teacher effectiveness, and faculty perceptions that…

Although the consistency of personality characteristics has been identified in groups of persons studied from infancy into young adulthood, few such studies have been able to include older adults. To investigate the stability of personality and social characteristics among young-old and old-old adults, 72 adults (51 female, 21 male) from the…

In the first of these three articles, methods for reporting vocational interests which do and do not reflect sex role stereotypes are examined. The second article is a reply to problems noted in the first article, and the third article is a rebuttal by the first authors. (Author/HMV)