Describes the development of an assessment program for beginning teachers and the program's effect on teaching and teacher education in Virginia. Discusses definitions of competence and performance, development of a system for assessing competence, training of classroom recorders, and measurement of competence by observations of teachers'…

Comparison of the beliefs concerning autism of 47 teachers and 47 parents of autistic children and 22 "specialists" in autism found both parents and teachers harbored misconceptions regarding cognitive, developmental, and emotional features of autism and parents and teachers held discrepant views in some areas. (Author/DB)

Seventy-one school psychologists were surveyed concerning their knowledge base, training, and experience in the area of traumatic head injury. Results indicated that school psychologists have received little systematic training in the area of traumatic head injury and do not have broad-based information about this group of children. (Author/JDD)

Evaluation of the effects of parent education meetings on preschool parents' (N=116) knowledge of child abuse indicated that parent education had little effect upon parents' knowledge of (1) the prevalence of child sexual abuse, (2) indicators of abuse, (3) parents' appropriate response to disclosures. (Author/DB)

The effects of knowledge maps and color enhancement on the recall of text information was studied with 84 college students. Results suggest that color enhancement can be a powerful tool for increasing acquisition of textual information presented through a knowledge map or more traditional formats. (SLD)

A survey of 803 14-year-old students in England regarding knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome determined that knowledge of transmission routes was high. Most did not want those infected to be banned from school; but they wanted to know who was infected. (JOW)

Examined male adolescent behavior, attitudes, and knowledge concerning condom use. Findings from 241 sexually active black adolescent males revealed that factors associated with condom use included higher grade level, having 2 or more sexual partners in past 6 months, communication about contraception with sexual partner, desire for sexually…

In a study focusing on components of metacognition, 12 expert and 12 novice computer programmers were compared in terms of metacognitive knowledge and task-specific awareness. Results indicate that experts have a close interaction between metacognitive knowledge, task-specific awareness, and cognitive monitoring that is missing in novices. (SLD)

The sexuality of 25 individuals with mild intellectual disability was assessed based on interviews that addressed their knowledge, experience, feelings, and needs. Compared to 39 college students and 10 care staff, subjects demonstrated a lower level of sex knowledge, less interactive sexual experience, equal frequencies of same-sex experiences,…

Describes knowledge, limitations of practicing physicians, and barriers to their greater understanding of environmental medicine. A current widespread lack of emphasis on environmental health topics at U.S. medical schools is discussed, as well as special environmental education programs and initiatives among medical specialty organizations. (LZ)

The problem of providing a systematic understanding of Language Awareness (LA) is reviewed. Topics covered include principles behind the various terms used to refer to LA and types of knowledge about language, intervention, and the value of studying genre awareness. (39 references) (Author/LB)

Notes that, although many convicted drinking driver programs use knowledge acquisition as their main objective, many convicted drinking drivers already have great deal of knowledge about effects of alcohol. Describes level of knowledge of 100 convicted drinking drivers and gives recommendations for more relevant programs and programs that have a…

Levels of alcohol knowledge, consumption and problems among college students in 1983 and 1988 were compared. Although the drinking age was raised to 21 in the state and alcohol awareness program was in existence at university, no significant differences were found between 2 samples in alcohol knowledge, consumption, or problems. (Author/ABL)

The notion that inferences contributing to coherence of a text representation are made during reading is examined. It is demonstrated that this idea is an overgeneralization and that one must distinguish between relations internal to the structure of the representation and relations that involve references to the world. (27 references) (Author/LB)

Discusses young children's learning in depth versus superficial learning, and presents the results of a study designed to assess 5-year olds' competence in physical knowledge. Found that the majority of children could identify basic principles, such as the floating and sinking properties of objects, but could not grasp more advanced ideas such as…