Presents four Physics General Certificate of Secondary Education assessment practicals which can be photocopied for use in instruction. Includes notes for guidance of teachers in determining student skills in management and organization, designing and carrying out experiments to solve problems, draw conclusions, and select suitable apparatus for…

Investigates static and dynamic approaches to agenda-setting research by means of cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of the same data, comparing agenda-setting effects of German television news shows. Finds the static models to be unsatisfactory, while the dynamic model revealed two types of effects: television coverage caused problem…

Inductive analysis of in-depth, open-ended interviews of persisting and nonpersisting Mexican American university students yielded two conceptual schemes, corresponding to pre- and post-matriculation attitudinal and behavioral patterns, for interpreting their perceptions of college-going experiences. (Author/MLW)

Examines data collected from the 1981-82 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Compares various groups of extreme rural males, females, Whites, and Blacks regarding achievement in social studies. Concludes that findings from the study should be used to improve weak areas of social studies curricula and recommends skills that should…

The conflict between immediacy and accuracy in data-gathering and analysis is discussed. The case of the Postsecondary Transcript Sample (PETS) of the National Longitudinal Study is used to illustrate the particulars of this conflict and their resolution on the side of accuracy. (Author/MLW)

How computers are used to analyze item data is reviewed, and the information that existing item-analysis programs provide is described. Summaries of studies comparing the performance of some of these packages reveal some of their current limitations. Emphasis is on the usefulness to educational practice of these packages. (SLD)

Describes three classes of measurement techniques: (1) interviewing methods; (2) record retrieval procedures; and (3) observation methods. Discusses primary reasons for measurement error. Concludes that, although measurement error can be defined and controlled for, there are other design factors that also must be considered. (CFR)

Reports five experiments; the first two assessed the effect of the selectional restriction requirements of verbs and the animacy of nouns on sentence comprehension, the third determined the cause of the interaction found in the first set of studies, and the fourth and fifth were self-paced reading experiments. (52 references) (Author/CK)

Argues that the choice of method for constructing concepts such as family and household does matter but that there is no a priori link between method and construction or between method and epistemological position. The extent of overlap between constructs produced by different methods must be investigated rather than assumed. (LKS)

Examines the accuracy of the current public attitude that instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL) at the college level is too expensive, and that nonnative students' success is not commensurate with the cost of teaching them. The article argues that these students represent the country's future and that educators must counter the assault…

An overview is presented on action research and practical inquiry, with attention to the initial phase of starting this approach, gathering data, analyzing the results, sharing findings, and judging the quality of action research and practical inquiry. Gifted education practitioners are encouraged to share action research findings. (SW)

This chapter gives an overview of the design and statistical and psychometric analysis methods of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The evolution of the NAEP continues to provide challenges to statisticians and psychometricians, as demonstrated in the expansion of the NAEP to the assessment of individual states. (SLD)

Following previous reports, this paper contains additional information about the multilingual situation in the multiethnic town of Bukavu in Zaire. Focus is on codeswitching, an important characteristic of the overall dynamic picture of linguistic interaction. Myers-Scotton's markedness model is discussed. (13 references) (Author/LB)

The acquisition of German in three adult Poles over a three-year period is examined based on an acquisition profile of each person that specified the sequences in acquisition. The findings suggest that cognitive factors must be considered to explain the varying degree of success in the acquisition process. (40 references) (Author/LB)

Outlines what school administrators can do to increase their understanding of local dropout programs and to decrease dropping out. Suggestions include analyzing local data, instituting early tracking of potential at-risk students, creating alternative programs, reorganizing to improve school climate, and initiating new forms of student assessment.…