A pretest/posttest assignment involving the writing of a business letter was given to 123 business communication students. Findings indicate that students gain equal efficiency in the understanding of and skill in the application of business writing principles by writing from draft through final copy as they do when editing and revising prewritten…

When the experimental units are measured twice, and the response variable is dichotomous, the equality of the two proportions is usally assessed by Mc Nemar's (1947) test. In this paper, Bayesian methods are presented for testing hypotheses regarding the two success probabilities in light of complete and incomplete data. (Author/BW)

Identifies factors that limit the effectiveness of pretests and posttests as evaluation methods and examines how they might influence obtained results. (JOW)

A special case of the homogeneity of effect size test, as applied to pairwise comparisons of standardized mean differences, was evaluated. Procedures for comparing pairs of pretest to posttest effect sizes, as well as pairs of treatment versus control group effect sizes, were examined. Monte Carlo simulation was used to generate Type I error rates…

This study examined the role of different goal-setting instructional interventions in facilitating students' shift to more sophisticated mental models of the circulatory system as indicated by both performance and process data. Researchers adopted the information processing model of self-regulated learning of P. Winne and colleagues (1998, 2001)…

At many postsecondary institutions, there are two levels of first-year courses: a "standard" course in which most students enroll; and a "remedial" course for academically underprepared students. This paper is concerned with determining whether taking a remedial course increases the cognitive skills that students need to succeed in a standard…

Training courses organized by the World Bank Institute (WBI) have recently started to assess participant learning using a randomized, cognitive pretest-posttest. Some trainers, however, feel reluctant to use this Level 2 evaluation (D. Kirkpatrick, 1994) in their courses, and continue to rely on participants' self-assessment of their own…

A total of 48 subjects were assigned to training conditions involving opportunities for either individual or group practice on materials either identical to or different from those used during a pretest. Posttest evaluations revealed improvements for subjects trained individually or in groups, but significant improvement was found only among…

Concludes that an objective pretest that evaluates basic skills will, in a high percentage of cases, predict student achievement in a business communications course. (FL)

Describes the key features of the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) project, which assesses the "value added" of an institution. The project assesses the institutional contribution to student learning through a focus on general education skills and the assessment of student performance relative to other students and through a…

This paper demonstrates that pretest-posttest designs provide more information than is commonly assumed. What is typically overlooked is that even when the posttest is the outcome measure, such designs also reveal if different interventions or experiences account for variations in pretest-posttest gains. (Contains 12 references.) (GCP)

The paradox that a Student t-test based on pretest-posttest differences can attain its greatest power when the difference score reliability is zero was explained by demonstrating that power is not a mathematical function of reliability unless either true score variance or error score variance is constant. (SLD)

Comparison of 55 nursing students who completed an information literacy program integrated into the curriculum with 72 who did not showed that participating students improved library and information skills from pre- to posttest. No significant differences between participants and nonparticipants were found. (SK)

Pre- and posttests and interviews concerning misconceptions and alternate conceptions of rates of change were administered to (n=42) students in first-semester calculus using a conceptually-motivated curriculum. Suggests that an emphasis on visual representations through construction and interpretation in conjunction with teacher-student analysis…

Ninety individuals with social phobia (social anxiety disorder) participated in a randomized controlled trial and completed cognitive-behavioral group therapy, exposure group therapy without explicit cognitive interventions, or a wait-list control condition. Both treatments were superior to the wait-list group in reducing social anxiety but did…