A study designed to determine the extent of improvement in performance as a result of a structured experiential learning situation assessed particular techniques for reinforcing learning in a personnel administration class. Confidence in knowledge scores increased from pretest to posttest for most students, but only some knowledge scores…

Recognizes three major problems for use of student achievement in measuring teacher effectiveness: (1) great variability in initial student capabilities; (2) teaching to the examinations; and (3) regression effects. Pretests/posttests and outside observers were shown (in a pilot study) to avoid such problems. (DH)

This article reports data on the retention of problem-solving performance after one month, four months, and six months, in three separate studies conducted in school settings involving a variety of grades and subjects. (Author/LMO)

Two computer-based instructional design strategies were investigated to improve the two-phase process of concept learning by being response sensitive to error patterns. The first strategy determined the format of examples by adaptive or fixed selection; the second strategy adjusted the selection according to rules of generalization and…

To assess the teachability of conditional logic structure, the commonly used syllogistic conditional reasoning task was divided into three main components: (1) inductive rule learning; (2) induction of conditional language; and (3) deductive interpretation. When trained on all components, fifth and seventh graders became very competent in dealing…

The impact of school district resources and policy changes on basic skills performance is examined in this article. Data were collected to observe if specific policy changes, testing programs, or teacher training influence student test results. Student pretesting had the only significant positive effect on performance. (Author/DF)

Vocabulary teaching and learning constitute a major problem for EFL instructors and students. The pretest showed that freshman students at COLT have difficulty in pronouncing, recognizing the meaning of, using and spelling English words. In their first semester, freshman students are required to take a vocabulary course that consists of 50 lessons…

This research offers empirical evidence of the importance of supplying diverse symbolic representations in order to support concept development in mathematics. Graphical representation can be a helpful symbolic tool for concept development in the conceptual field of additive structures. Nevertheless, this symbolic tool has specific difficulties…

Keiser College is a private, for-profit Level II institution with thirteen branch campuses throughout Florida. Most of its academic programs are offered at multiple sites. A major concern has been to establish and maintain the consistency of its academic offerings at all campuses as the College expands. Building on a pre- posttesting mechanism…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain teachers' multicultural knowledge, cross-cultural perceptions, and attitudes about different cultures as a function of both pre-service professional preparation and graduate education curriculum. Accomplishing this goal required administration of the Multicultural/Diversity Scale?Revised (MCR) at…

This document contains a report describing a collaborative initiative involving the regional office and two sub-offices of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) and four Head Start programs in northwest Connecticut that resulted in positive outcomes for children and families, agency staff, and their communities. Also included…

This study investigated the attitudes toward statistics of graduate students who used a computer program as part of the instruction, which allowed for an individualized, self-paced, student-centered, activity-based course. The twelve sections involved in this study were offered in the spring and fall 2001, spring and fall 2002, spring and fall…

The starting point for this study was the resistant nature of prior knowledge in conceptual change from natural numbers to rational numbers observed in our previous study. Thus, in this study the effects of deliberately teaching the abstraction of the density of numbers on the number line was tested in a quasi-experimental study at the beginning…

Teachers' attitudes play a critical role in the effectiveness of technology. The Technology Attitude Survey (TAS) was developed to assess teachers' attitudes toward the general use of technology as an educational tool in the classroom. Reliability and validity of the TAS were investigated. A small pilot study showed high reliability. Pretest and…

A simulation study of methods of assessing differential item functioning (DIF) in computer-adaptive tests (CATs) was conducted by Zwick, Thayer, and Wingersky (in press, 1993). Results showed that modified versions of the Mantel-Haenszel and standardization methods work well with CAT data. DIF methods were also investigated for nonadaptive…