Viewing the reliability for criterion-referenced tests as that of mastery classification decisions, three models for determining reliability were examined using two test administrations so that two estimates could be compared to a standard. A major purpose of the research was to determine how several reliability coefficients (coefficient kappa, an…

Nuclear war education has become a topic of concern among educators who, on one side, see it as an essential component of undergraduate education or, on the other, see it as political indoctrination dominated by direct and indirect Soviet interests. This study assessed the affective impact of an intensive (eight hours per day for five straight…

The purpose of this study was to clarify the psychological impact of nuclear issues education on preadolescents in order to obtain data that might be useful in developing public policy concerning the role of nuclear issues education. Teachers presented "Choices," an educational unit on nuclear war and conflict, to sixth, seventh, and…

This document reports the findings of an evaluation of the Family Day Care Training and Accreditation Program, a voluntary program for family day care providers in San Antonio, Texas. The program consisted of eight training workshops, home visits, and a validation. Workshop topics included: space to play and learn, health and safety, growth and…

This guide is designed to help teachers develop comprehensive lesson plans to enhance student understanding of why nations compete, why they cooperate, and why they sometimes go to war. Written to accompany a student text of the same title, the guide should help students to: (1) understand the behavior of nations by defining national interest and…

This paper describes the general rationale, hypotheses, methodology, findings and implications of a recent dissertation research project conducted in the Columbus, Ohio, public schools. The computer-based study investigated the simultaneous relationship between achievement in microeconomics and attitude toward economics, level of computer anxiety,…

The effects of two curricula for teaching number concepts to kindergarten children: a part-part-whole (PPW) curriculum emphasizing set-subset relationships between cardinal numbers, and a count/say/write (CSW) standard curriculum were composed. The concept of number attained by children taught with these two curricula was compared to that of…

Many basic skills are chains of cognitive operations. For teaching such skills, two questions have not been adequately investigated: (1) how the operations comprising the skill should be sequenced, and (2) the relationships among the operations that need to be taught. This investigation entailed four studies on different types and lengths of basic…

This report evaluated the fourth year of operation (1985-1986) of the Chapter 2 All-Day Kindergarten Program. The goals of this program were that the children attending show growth in reading readiness, acquisition of number concepts, and affective development. Principal findings note that (1) attendance rates were higher than citywide…

This study tested the effects of two instructional sequences--principle-procedure and procedure-principle--on the application and transfer of learning. It was hypothesized that a principle-procedure sequence would result in better near-transfer and far-transfer and that students would prefer this sequence. The 38 freshmen enrolled in a business…

A method for translating the achievement gains in Normal Curve Equivalents (NCE) to a more conceptually understandable index of academic growth is described. This method calculates "Expected Growth (EG)" and expresses the relationship of observed achievement gains. The method is shown to be easily applied and well suited to local…

The purpose of this study was to assess changes in parental skills and attitudes and to examine children's self-concept and behavior following parents' participation in one of two skills training programs. Pretest and posttest measures were administered to 15 working-class parents participating in a communication skills program, to 7 parents…

An analytic procedure, efficiency analysis, is proposed for improving the utility of quantitative program evaluation for decision making. The three features of the procedure are explained: (1) for statistical control, it adopts and extends the regression-discontinuity design; (2) for statistical inferences, it de-emphasizes hypothesis testing in…

This leader's guide is designed for use in conducting a seminar to train bank employees in correct procedures for issuing and redeeming U.S. Savings Bonds and in answering routine customer inquiries concerning savings bonds. Included in the first section of the guide are an overview of the purpose and content of the seminar, procedures for…

Two studies were conducted to extend the application and explore the parameters of the concept tree and rational set generator instructional design techniques. The first study was conducted with high school English students. Results indicated that students who studied the concept tree performed no differently on the classification tests than…