Uses reading responses of a ninth grade class and a teachers' study group to examine the social memberships and constituencies that reading and discussion disclose through the response process. Maintains that teachers should base reading lists on an understanding of their own and students' memberships rather than on some abstract notion of…

An extension is proposed for the network algorithm introduced by C.R. Mehta and N.R. Patel to construct exact tail probabilities for testing the general hypothesis that item responses are distributed according to the Rasch model. A simulation study indicates the efficiency of the algorithm. (SLD)

A test theory using only ordinal assumptions is presented, based on the idea that the test items are a sample from a universe of items. The sum across items of the ordinal relations for a pair of persons on the universe items is analogous to a true score. (SLD)

A study found that differences in children's ability to regulate their emotional responses, and in their social and cognitive development, are implicated in developmental differences in children's strategies for influencing others' mood states. (BB)

Analysis of mealtime conversations of 37 families revealed qualitative differences in mothers' use of internal state words to children with Down's syndrome, compared to speech to nondisabled children matched for adaptive functioning. Results suggest that speech to Down's syndrome children calibrated to mean length of utterance may underestimate…

Fifth- and sixth-grade students without disabilities and with mild learning disabilities and seventh- and eighth-grade students with more severe disabilities participated in an instructional program about the concept of themes in stories. The program improved comprehension of theme and identification of a specific theme that had been used in…

Quantitative data based on an analysis of an in-depth survey of 247 basic second-language (English-as-a-Second-Language and foreign language) writers' responses to feedback conventions used by their composition instructors are presented. The findings provide insight into teacher behaviors that function positively and negatively as apprentice…

The use of cinema in a French literature class can help students become more aware of their role as receivers in the reading process. "Le retour de Martin Guerre" and "Entre Nous" helped develop students' awareness of gender's importance in a variety of literary texts. (16 references) (LB)

Details the experiences of one teacher researcher who observed an 11th-grade English class over the course of a year. Describes the changes initiated by the teacher, along with their mixed results. Analyzes the student response to such innovations as writing workshops and shared interpretations of texts. (HB)

Teachers need an appreciation for and empathetic understanding of their students, and they require tools for intervening when students have behavior problems or fail to demonstrate effective living skills in school. They must also have the courage to expect students to learn, grow, and live up to classroom standards. (SM)

A loglinear item response theory (IRT) model is proposed that relates polytomously scored item responses to a multidimensional latent space. The analyst may specify a response function for each response, and each item may have a different number of response categories. Conditional maximum likelihood estimates are derived. (SLD)

At Carnegie Mellon University, interactive videodisks are used to create real-world moral dilemmas in the classroom for students studying ethics, values, and critical thinking. The medium combines the power of film with the control of the computer, but production of materials can be time consuming and difficult. (MSE)

Children's conceptions of the emotions of guilt versus shame were investigated in 2 studies involving children ages 7 to 9 and 10 to 12. Age-related differences in conceptions of guilt and shame emerged. The older children understood the adaptive implications of both emotions, whereas the younger children perceived them more in terms of the…

This paper provides the basis for understanding score equating through item response theory (IRT). Theoretical justifications and practical advantages of IRT true-score test procedures are discussed. Three steps in the equating process are specified, and a self-test is included. (SLD)

Written feedback, placed on five students' reading assignments, was evaluated in a multiple baseline design across students. The outcomes indicated improved accuracy in reading when the feedback was provided by the teacher. Differences between previous research and the present study are discussed. (AMH)