The kind of teacher performance that prompts witnesses to say that someone is a good teacher is not always equivalent to good teaching, if good teaching is what produces good learning. Teacher evaluation by colleagues and students, testing, and reading are discussed, and a new hypothesis and proposals are presented. (MLW)

Retarded subjects were compared with mental- and chronological-age matched controls on serial short-term memory (STM) tasks. Retarded subjects were inferior to the control groups on both primacy and recency items, under two recall conditions. These data are discussed in relation to possible mechanisms underlying IQ-related individual differences…

Teaching is regarded as an important function of the hospital house officer, but a survey by the Association of American Medical Colleges shows that the resident's teaching is not explicitly evaluated and that the teaching role itself is not well defined. It is argued that more training is needed to prepare the graduate medical student for his…

The case studies of performance budgeting for higher education by Hawaii and Washington illustrate the issues and obstacles involved in new approaches to accountability. Issues covered: development of performance measures, aggregation and analysis, quantitative v qualitative measures, performance measures and responsibility accounting, and…

The processes and effects of state performance audits of postsecondary academic programs are illustrated by case studies in Wisconsin and Virginia. Main problems are: the difficulty of establishing legislative intent; lack of appropriate performance indicators, measures, and standards, and issues of timeliness and impact. (MLW)

The influence of visual and auditory factors and intonational emphasis on sentence comprehension skills of young normal and mentally handicapped children was studied, using the Sentence Comprehension Test. (Sample items are appended). (Author/MH)

A cross-validation study of the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) was conducted with 256 professional employees from three applied research and development organizations. The KAI correlated well with both direct and indirect measures of innovativeness in all three organizations. (Author/MH)

Describes the College Board's Pacesetter Program, high school courses developed using principles of ongoing performance testing and portfolios, standards, and curriculum. The model is illustrated in a description of the Voices of Modern Culture language arts course. Argues that this assessment process has systemic validity and is more relevant to…

The authors update an article on intervention, discussing career development, communications, feedback, financial, human development, information, instructional, labor relations, measurement and evaluation, quality improvement, resource, reward and recognition, and selection systems; documentation and standards; ergonomics and human factors;…

A study examined 634 medical students' ratings of 126 attending and 152 resident physicians' teaching to prioritize specific skills needing focused faculty development. Results indicated students can discriminate between more- and less-effective teaching behaviors. Attending physicians were less effective at communicating goals than other teaching…

Argues that psycholinguistics relies on a number of methodologies that bear little relation to actual language comprehension. Maintains that computer software illustrating classic experiments in psycholinguistics can introduce students to these techniques. The software examines experiments concerning reaction time, reading time, and recognition.…

Pediatrics faculty (n=44) at the Medical College of Wisconsin participated in an experiment on feedback and instructional improvement. Over 12 months, 21 faculty received feedback bimonthly from residents' and students' ratings of clinical teaching, including written comments. Faculty receiving feedback showed significantly improved ratings over…

A college teacher explains how weekly "critical incident questionnaires" illuminate what students think is significant in a class. Such questionnaires point out developing instructional problems, encourage students to be reflective learners, support diversity in teaching methods, build trust, and suggest possibilities for teacher…

Utilizes M. A. K. Halliday's theories concerning the social and cultural functions of language to construct a series of social studies/language arts integrated learning activities. First graders wrote letters to an imaginary mouse in their desks and third graders answered the letters. Analyzes this activity and includes an annotated bibliography.…

Examines factors having a bearing on boy/girl performance in second-language classes in the United Kingdom. Findings indicate that boys attach less importance to learning a foreign language than girls do; girls are more conscientious about their schoolwork than boys are; expectations for boys and girls are different; and students value the…