Presents an exercise designed to nullify student claims of subjectivity in the grading of essay examinations. Asks students to grade sample essay questions according to specific criteria. Discusses benefits of the exercise. Provides sample essays and answers, and illustrates the difference between analytical and narrative answers. (RW)

An innovative classroom exercise that relieves anxiety related to psychological statistics courses and is relevant to the real world was tested with 26 psychology students. The use of real-world data based on a taste-test television commercial helps students understand the practical applications of statistics. (SLD)

A mental model analysis was conducted with 27 graduate and 29 undergraduate students in the statistical hypothesis testing domain to determine the nature of relevant mental models that can be taught to novices. Results suggest the efficacy of using separate and diagrammatic strategies in teaching novices introductory hypothesis testing. (SLD)

One law professor has added interest to a torts course by asking students to select one of five perspectives (economics, corrective justice, feminism, libertarianism, and practicality) on the course content and study it throughout the course. On the final examination, each student must answer one essay question from that viewpoint. (MSE)

This paper reviews the recent history of psychoeducational testing, examines attempts to link assessment with instruction within the information processing domain, and presents a model of a general assessment-instruction procedure that classroom and specialist teachers could use in effective remediation and instruction practices. (JDD)

Reports on a classroom project in which college-level psychology students developed a institutionwide course ratings questionnaire. Describes the data gathering, item development, and pilot testing phases of the project. Concludes that the students learned about tests and measurements by doing the project and that the institution benefited from…

Describes a study that was designed to explore the effects of two teaching presentations (parsed and whole cartoons) and cognitive style (field dependent and field independent) on undergraduate students' ability to understand editorial cartoons. Use of the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) is discussed, and hypotheses tested are explained. (32…

Self-teaching booklets and computer media were evaluated for teaching diagnostic testing with first (n=49), second (n=41) and third year (n=71) dental students as a foundation for further development of clinical decision-making skills. Results found the media more effective than no instruction and equally effective to the traditional lecture…

Provides insights gained from a study of 19 foreign countries regarding foreign language education. The study looked at what the United States can learn from these countries, examining specific policies and practices that could inform U.S. foreign language education. Implications of study findings are discussed. (Author/VWL)

Inquiry-based teaching and assessment approaches are superior to standardized tests for measuring students' progress. Historical thinking skills employed in Leopold von Ranke's 19th-century seminars have been refined to consider point of view, credibility of evidence, historical context, causality, and multiple perspectives--benchmarks of…

There have been increasing efforts among science educators to move students away from learning about science towards learning "to be" scientists. To move in this direction, there is a need to change the epistemology of the learning of science from instructivism to one of social constructivist learning. The purpose of this research is to…

This paper, part of a larger case study of beginning teachers and mentors, describes the concerns of four teachers throughout their stages of development in first-year teaching. They and their mentors were interviewed at three intervals in the school year to obtain perceptions of beginning teacher concerns. Beginning teachers also kept journals of…

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has been shown to enhance rote memory skills and improve higher order critical thinking skills. The challenge now is to identify what aspects of CAI improve which specific higher-order skills. This study focuses on the effectiveness of using CAI to teach logarithmic graphing and dimensional analysis. Two groups…

The use of bilingual graphic organizers (bilingual knowledge maps [BiK maps]) as a presentation format was investigated for the acquisition of foreign language vocabulary. Participants were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions for the task of studying 32 German-English word pairs. Participants in each condition were trained on either lists or BiK maps…

Over the past two decades, the presence and use of technology in the workplace and in schools has increased dramatically. At the same time, the importance of test-based educational accountability has also increased. Currently, formal testing programs are used in 49 states. Some observers have raised concerns that the testing programs that make…