The use of digital photography in the social studies classroom offers students an application of technology that can help them develop the skills necessary to access, analyze, and evaluate all forms of information and communication. Students learn to recognize how images represent diverse perspectives, connect disparate pieces of information, and…

In this chapter, the authors review three distinct theoretical discourses--educational measurement, hermeneutics, and sociocultural studies--to support the development of validity theory for the routine use of assessment by professionals working in complex, dynamic, and always partially unique educational environments. They review validity…

Recent scientific advances in early literacy assessment have provided schools with access to critical information about students' foundational beginning reading skills. In this article, we describe how assessment of early literacy skills can help school psychologists promote beginning reading success for all children. First, we identify key skills…

The first Teaching American History (TAH) grants were made available to K-12 schools from the Department of Education in 2002. They provide money to school systems for three-year projects to form partnerships with area organizations with the goal of increasing the American history knowledge of teachers and students. This study focuses on the…

Although both theoretical and empirical literature suggests that individuals' family-of-origin experiences affect subsequent relationship functioning as adults, few studies have examined the appropriateness of family assessment techniques when applied retrospectively for use in either theory development or clinical applications. This study…

The inherent strengths of Black youth are sometimes overlooked by assessment and intervention following perspectives of the dominant culture. This article describes the unique ways in which strengths and difficulties are defined in Black culture. This research is informing more appropriate strategies for building on the strengths of this…

This article is based on a textual analysis of European Commission documents that, from 1993 to 2006, construct the discourses of lifelong learning and the knowledge economy. Exploring an apparent conceptual laxity, it finds absolute consistency in the construction of two categories of learner: the high knowledge-skilled learner…

This article reports data from children aged about 5 years in their 1st year of schooling. Scores on tests of both literacy and numeracy at the start and end of the year were used to derive value-added measures of progress using both residual gain analysis and multilevel (ML) modelling. Results indicated that the school was more effective in…

PURPOSE: This research determined the psychometric quality of a criterion-referenced measure that was thought to measure preschoolers' print-concept knowledge (PCK). METHOD: This measure, titled the Preschool Word and Print Awareness (PWPA), was examined using the partial credit model (PCM) to determine its suitability for use by clinicians,…

There is a growing interest about learning environments enhancing learning motivation. However, two questions need to be answered to improve learning environment motivational quality: how much motivational value do students attribute to each particular component of learning environments? And in what degree is such value mediated by students'…

Until recently, little attention has been paid to the language and academic needs of English as a second language (ESL) students in the social studies classroom. In the most recent review and one of the few written on social studies texts and instruction, Short (1998) found that ESL students do not receive the language and academic support they…

Higher education institutions have long argued that they have a distinctive and critical role to play as partners in initial teacher education. This research offers an evaluation of this claim by exploring the contribution of higher education alongside the school-based input it is intended to complement. Using a case study approach within a…

Starting in the first months of 2004, over the education online Web page, the opinions of a great many teachers with regard to problems of education were solicited. After it was published, the theme message (zhuti tie) "2005, What We Are Saying" aroused fairly strong repercussions. By November 16, some 10,369 persons had read the…

Based on her study of the assessment and validation of final year projects in two academic departments--one located in a humanities faculty and the other in an engineering faculty of a South African university--Suellen Shay argues that the assessment of complex tasks is a socially situated interpretive act. Her argument centers on three questions.…

Needs assessments require staff with the necessary expertise to design the study, collect the data, analyze the data, and present results. They require money, time, and persistence, because the people one wishes to assess often are difficult to access. This article argues for the centrality of a well-done needs assessment when developing services…