The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new learning environments instrument designed to aid investigators and practitioners in measuring and researching the psychosocial learning environment in post-secondary distance education. Using a three-stage approach, the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) was…

The failure to consider factors that make a key contribution to violence and its prevention may create serious problems of construct validity for school violence surveys. Further, few studies have assessed the relative importance of variables contributing to perceptions of safety by examining correlations between survey items and overall feelings…

Standardized rating scales are the most often used part of the multidimensional assessment of children's behavior. However, low cross-informant correlations raise concerns about the reliability and validity of the resulting scores. This study examined whether the manner in which behavioral constructs are measured differs across informants, across…

The physical education curriculum in the state of South Carolina is representative of a trend towards increasing instruction in health-related fitness concepts. In 1994 the South Carolina state legislature mandated that the required physical education course in high school include one semester of lifetime fitness and one semester of personal…

A study was performed to test the association between the proportion of liberal arts course offerings and institutional transfer rate by merging the data on liberal arts offerings in the community colleges included in the 1991 National Community College Curriculum Study with the transfer rate data for these same colleges obtained from their…

This paper reviews the 12 career assessment instruments that have been found to be most used in Texas with students with special needs. Two tables list the instruments along with the opinions of users concerning their qualities. The reviews follow a standard outline. Each review is one to two pages in length and provides this information: title,…

This keynote address reported on the current state of science education in three areas: curriculum development, attitudes toward science, and assessment in science. Three major projects in science curriculum reform were the focus of the section on curriculum development: (1) Project 2061; (2) Scope, Sequence, and Coordination; and (3) Earth…

The North Carolina Project for Reform in Science Education, which is part of the National Science Teachers Association's Scope, Sequence, and Coordination Project, and the importance of student test scores as an evaluation tool were evaluated. Seven North Carolina schools participated in the project's first year (1991-92), with 21 teachers, and…

The creation and validation of a Spanish version of an English developmental spelling test (DST) is described. An introductory section reviews related literature on the rationale for and construction of DSTs, spelling development in the early grades, and Spanish-English bilingual education. Differences between the English and Spanish test versions…

The National Academy of Education Panel is providing the intellectual leadership and coordination for an independent evaluation of the 1990 and 1992 Trial State Assessments (TSA) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). These instruments provide state-by-state comparisons of educational achievement, which is the first such use of…

In this final report of an 18-month series of projects designed to investigate the validity of the General Knowledge (GK) and Communications Skills (CS) tests of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) for North Carolina, highlights and major conclusions are summarized and appropriate standards of performance are recommended. Evidence was…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 19 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effectiveness of English placement examinations used at five junior colleges in California; (2) the direction and distance of context required by college…

This project first identified the duties and tasks required of an entry-level auto mechanic (AM) and an auto body worker (ABW), using a modified DACUM (Developing a Curriculum) occupational analysis process. In this process, a panel of local, expert workers determined the essential duties and tasks of their occupations. Next, the panel identified…

The licensure of public school personnel in Tennessee is a function of the State Department of Education (SDE). Additional requirements for this certification function were added by the Comprehensive Education Reform Act (Senate Bill Number 1) of the 1984 Tennessee General Assembly. The Act mandated that the SDE use tests to assess the competence…

Abstracts and abstractors' critiques of 10 published research reports related to misconceptions, attitudes, gender and miscellaneous issues are presented in this issue. Studies include: (1) the development, revision, refinement, and partial validation of an instrument to assess preservice elementary teachers' process orientation toward science;…