Recently, many insights have been gained into how to create powerful learning environments. The goal of learning how to teach in this way has important consequences for teacher training. Firstly, scholars indicate the necessity to work out a theoretical framework for the student-teachers which is sufficiently complete, but still manageable, and…

Consumer acceptance or rejection of biotechnology is often shaped by information prepared by communicators with varying levels of scientific knowledge, awareness, and acceptance. This study compared the prior, post-workshop, and sustained (1 year) biotechnology awareness, acceptance, and attitudes of professionals who communicate biotechnology to…

This book provides basic skills and knowledge about assessment so that teachers can expand their ability to deal with appraisal problems in their own settings. The first section deals with the basic principles of assessment. The second section concerns creating and applying assessment tools. The third section reviews issues in understanding 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…

Standards-based assessment, or at least the concept of standards-based assessment, will provide a key strategy for the implementation of the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework. This paper considers the meaning of standards-based assessment and its role in New Zealand's assessment for nationally recognized qualifications. Standards-based…

This study investigated a number of questions regarding the nature of social concept development in young children. Subjects were 64 kindergarten children and 65 first grade public school students from lower to upper middle class socioeconomic levels, of whom 66 were male, 63 were female, 78 were Caucasian, and 51 were black. Two assessment…

The measurement of change is such a broad topic that this article must limit its focus to a few specific subtopics. These specific topics include: longitudinal research design, attrition in research studies, the statistical analysis of difference scores, and the comparison of analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multivariate analysis of variance…

The issues discussed in these four papers concern the validity and generalizability of classroom observation instruments. These issues have been studied and are reported here in an attempt to better define the limits to which classroom observation instruments can be used in researching relationships between teacher behavior and student outcome.…

The relationships of quantitative measures of writing skills to overall writing quality as measured by the E.T.S. Composition Evaluation Scale (CES) were examined. Quantitative measures included indices of language productivity, vocabulary diversity, spelling, and syntactic maturity. Power of specific indices to account for variation in overall…

A detailed description is provided of the variable allocated learning time (ALT), which is part of the analysis in phase I of the Evaluation of Practices in Individualized Schooling. The variable is defined; the questionnaires on which the variable is based are listed, the procedures used to scale the variable are explained; the distribution of…

Since the administrative evaluation of faculty at the University of New Haven has been hampered by the faculty's distrust of student input, this study aimed to improve the faculty's confidence in student evaluations of instruction. A student evaluation of instructors was statistically compared to grades issued by the instructors, and to class…

College instructors evaluted the quality of their own teaching and were evaluated by their students in 331 different courses. Student evaluations of teaching correlated with instructor self evaluations in courses taught by teaching assistants, in undergraduate courses taught by faculty, and in graduate level courses, demonstrating their validity…

In establishing educational goals through the Delphi technique, convergence of perception is of paramount interest. Progress toward integrated schools and changing sex roles make the perception of educational goals by groups defined by race and sex of practical significance. In three studies involving panels of community leaders, educators, and…

Comparisons were made of test scores derived from a sample of American Indian students attending grades 2 through 10, living in a Bureau of Indian Affairs dormitory, and enrolled either in an English as a Second Language Program (N=43) or in the regular school program (N=87) to determine ESL impact on Indian students' English vocabulary,…

To determine whether change orientation was a measurable characteristic of vocational teachers, an instrument was developed consisting of eight attitude subscales designed to measure change orientations relating to: (1) reducing the number of under-prepared people entering the labor market, (2) meeting the needs of disadvantaged students, (3)…