As part of a study of access and admission to higher education in Germany and the United States, a German specialist was invited to critique the American system of access to higher education, especially admission testing and open admission. The author's objective is to present selected problems related to objective testing within the framework of…

The College Outcome Measures Project/American College Testing Program (COMP/ACT) Writing Assessment is described, and issues of validity and reliability in the assessment of writing samples using qualitative rating scales are explored. COMP/ACT is composed of three role-playing tasks in the social sciences, natural sciences, and arts, which are…

Since 1970, in response to a variety of external and internal pressures, many postsecondary institutions have undertaken projects to improve the quality of undergraduate education by rethinking what is involved in a liberal education and revising the process as well as the content of the education they offer. Innovative programs, instructional…

This book consists of eight articles that grew out of a seminar and study group on "School and the Rights of Children," held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison during the spring of 1973. The book is intended to establish a healthy perspective on the extension of the rights and liberties of children in the public schools. The collective view…

The primary purpose of this leaflet is to assist the teacher of English in building good achievement tests, with special attention to planning and construction. Subjects covered are general considerations for planning a test, making a blueprint for the test, basic characteristics of effective tests and test questions, selecting the proper test…

The Michigan English Study of Structure for Curriculum Evaluation (MESSAGE) training session involved 40 leaders of English curriculum study in a 7-day intensive program. They studied objective evaluation in terms of behavior, instruction, and institution; approaches to the English curriculum through instructional objectives that include…

This essay on cultural change is intended to provide background reading material for teachers using "The Changing World Today" or "Cultural Change in Mexico and the United States," two textbooks from the Anthropology Curriculum Project. The essay can also be used, however, as a high school semester course in anthropology or as…

The author states that our present teaching methods tend to foster a common intellectual skill: thinking the world to pieces, and that while this skill is very essential, it is only half of understanding. Our planet functions not according to a program of technological reductionism, but as a gestalt, and we are in desperate need of perceiving it…

This research project was carried out to test the hypothesis that symbolic logic instruction, if taught in a secondary school field situation in a way which included specific applications to argumentative composition, would effect greater improvement in composition and logical sentence analysis than if the students received little or no…

The Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP) writing assessment is designed to assess students' knowledge and skills on curricular benchmarks. The Rating Guide for Functional Writing is criterion-referenced. The IIEP is neither mandated by statute nor connected to graduation requirements. Randomly selected students are tested each year.…

This teaching guide's principal objective is to engage students in thinking about the relationship among conflict, peace, political transition, and democracy in preparation for writing an essay on the National Peace Essay Contest's topic on "transitions to democracy." Specific objectives are: (1) to increase students' understanding of the nature…

The essays in this collection represent the many ways in which the academic world is in flux. The collection suggests guidance for organizations and individual faculty, looks at decision-making structures, offers advice about empowering a faculty, and addresses the responsibilities of the academic in the current educational climate. The essays,…

This study examined the SAT® II: Writing Subject Test as a predictor of writing performance in college English courses. Writing performance was based on eight writing samples submitted as part of regular course work by students in eight colleges. The samples consisted of drafts and final papers submitted in response to four take-home writing…

Previous research on differences in the reliability, validity, and difficulty of essay tests given under different timing conditions has indicated that giving examinees more time to complete an essay may raise their scores to a certain extent, but does not change the meaning of those scores, or the rank ordering of students. There is no evidence…

The efficacy of education as preparation for work has been seriously questioned since about 1970. Major social changes affecting this relationship are described in this introduction to "New Directions for Education and Work," a new series of quarterly sourcebooks dedicated to exploring and furthering the education-work link. (AF)