As a result of a Technology Retreat sponsored by the Maricopa Community Colleges (Arizona) in 1988, action/research groups were formed to explore the various challenges of implementing instructional technology effectively. This interim report reviews the work of the groups, with a summary report from each, as follows: (1) "Alternative Funding…

Research on the major computerized adaptive testing (CAT) strategies is reviewed, and some findings are reported that examine effects of examinee demographic and psychological characteristics on CAT strategies. In fixed branching strategies, all examinees respond to a common routing test, the score of which is used to assign examinees to a…

Selected papers presented in this book are: "Changing Concepts of Self-Direction in Learning" (Long); "The Transition from Learner-Control to Autodidaxy: More than Meets the Eye" (Candy); "Self-Directed Learning and the Theory of Adult Education" (Jarvis); "On the Theme and Variations of Self-Directed…

Papers presented at the 1990 Symposium of the Nordic Research Group for Theoretical and Applied Text Linguistics include the following: "Success Concepts" (Enkvist); "Reconciling the Psychological with the Linguistic in Accounts of Text Comprehension" (Garrod); "Particles as Fundaments of Discourse Structuring"…

This book introduces the latest theories about second-language acquisition and tested teaching approaches and practices for use in elementary schools. It is intended for all educators interested in adapting their skills to help recently-arrived immigrants, students born in Canada, and students for whom a lack of English skills may be delaying…

The Education Department of Salem-Teikyo University (West Virginia) was chosen to develop a pilot assessment plan as part of the overall Institutional Student Outcomes Assessment Plan. The plan delineated in this paper includes the following criteria: (1) students majoring in education may enroll in the teacher education program to earn elementary…

A growing trend in social science research is to reject those modes that treat individuals as objects of research and to accept the role of catalyst in helping the people to do their own research. Also, there is an increasing demand that results of social research must serve in a timely way to improve the situation of those involved. Participatory…

Issues 2-4 of this volume of the newsletter concerning foreign language instruction in elementary schools (FLES) contain articles on theory, classroom practice, instructional materials, class activities, and professional news, including conferences and information on public policy at the federal level. Articles in these issues include the…

This book is the first in a series on teachers and teaching, a result of the Australian Council for Educational Research program of research on teachers. The theme, teachers in society, has been constructed around three broad areas: the context of teaching, teacher education, and teachers' work. The book is divided into 8 chapters as follows: (l)…

Intended for elementary school teachers of reading and composition, this book assembles several articles on the reading/writing relationship that have appeared in 1982 and 1983 issues of the journal "Language Arts." The three sections of the book define the relationship between composing and comprehending, explore relevant research, and…

Educational issues concerning all levels of education in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland are examined in these 18 conference papers. The focus of the presidential address was on general education in the secondary school. The invited address discussed the aims and objectives in higher education. Papers dealt with the following…

The May 2005 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference on English Education (CEE) Leadership and Policy Summit brought together over 75 past, present, and future leaders of CEE from across the United States to Georgia State University to rethink issues related to the preparation and continuing professional development of English…

More than a dozen statistical models have been developed for the purpose of cognitive diagnosis. These models are supposed to extract a much finer level of information from item responses than traditional unidimensional item response models. In this paper, a general diagnostic model (GDM) was used to analyze a set of simulated sparse data and real…

The Standardized Letter of Recommendation (SLR), a 28-item form, was created by ETS to supplement the qualitative rating of graduate school applicants' nonacademic qualities with a quantitative approach. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the following psychometric properties of the SLR using the Rasch rating-scale model: dimensionality,…

To weigh the negative effects of "primerese" against its supposedly improved readability, a study compared the reading of controlled basal stories with that of the same stories minimally rewritten into more natural language. Participants were 64 white, lower middle class first grade students selected from five classrooms (all with basal…