As a newly appointed joint hire in the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Natural Sciences and the College of Education, Department of Middle/Secondary Education, my charge was to bridge the communication gap between these two departments and colleges. To meet this challenge, I developed four collaborative projects between the Natural…

This publication is the third annual report and focuses on the expansion and results of the program after three years. The General Appropriations Act passed by the 78th Legislature contained a rider (Rider 29, page III-58) which continued the HEA Pilot Program for the current biennium. The rider requires that prospective students in high schools…

Tantrums, or emotional reactions that are out of proportion to a situation, appear to be a common childhood phenomenon--yet have drawn little research attention. This pilot study describes tantrum precipitants; their frequency, intensity, and duration; and parental responses in a small community sample (N = 33) of 3- to 5-year-olds. Tantrum…

Northern Ireland has invested heavily in the use of technology enhanced learning at all levels of education. Alongside this, radical changes to the school curriculum and the planned move away from academic selection towards a more inclusive system are challenging those involved in Initial Teacher Education to find ways to improve teaching and…

The Open University (OU) is the UK's largest university, with over 200,000 people studying, part time and at a distance, a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and packs. Research and development carried out at the OU's Centre for Outcomes-Based Education (COBE), has provided a new way of enabling students to be accredited at higher…

The purpose of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) figural-response project was to design a prototype computer assessment system for delivering and scoring figural-response items in the domain of cell and molecular biology and to begin to investigate properties of the item format. This report describes progress to date in an effort that is…

A statewide effort to identify stressors in state-level social service institutions in Iowa led one state health agency to establish a stress management project. A pilot program singularly focused on communication as the key tool in reducing stress and managing stress. A longitudinal study surveyed agency employees at the Iowa Veteran's Home in…

This paper chronicles the Teaching Mathematics Using Interactive Videodisk (TMMUIV) pilot project. The project emerged in response to the need to train pre-service teachers in, among other things, the use of mathematics manipulatives. The project now can offer a video database and pilot instructional program that combines full-motion video,…

Little work has been done regarding the overall assessment of quality of computer science graduates at the undergraduate level. This paper reports on a pilot study at the University of Alabama of a prototype computer science outcomes assessment designed to evaluate the breadth of knowledge of computer science seniors. The instrument evaluated two…

The 21-member Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information was formed in December 1994 and spent a year studying what is needed to make digital libraries stable, accessible, and valid. Their final report is divided into the following sections: (1) "Introduction," which examines the fragility of cultural memory in a digital age and the…

The Work Keys (trademark) system of the American College Testing program has combined assessments of listening and writing into a single test administration. The Listening and Writing assessment uses independent scorings of the examinee's written responses to audiotaped prompts to assess both listening and writing skills separately. This paper…

Research has confirmed the link between a number of psychosocial issues (including limited/lacking social networks, learned helplessness, substance abuse, and emotional problems) and homelessness. Research has further established that those psychosocial issues are interlinked by the common denominator of depression, the recognized cognitive…

This document contains three papers presented at a symposium on evaluation systems in human resource development (HRD) moderated by Jerry Gilley at the 1996 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development. "PLS [Performance-Learning-Satisfaction] Evaluation System: Sales Communication Case Study" (Richard A. Swanson, Timothy R.…

A pilot project evaluated the learning experience of adults taking one of seven creative writing courses in Edinburgh, Scotland (five courses run by Edinburgh University's Centre for Continuing Education and two run by Lothian Region Community Education). Data were obtained from a survey completed by 45 students (of 87 students receiving…

The purpose of this in-progress study is to try to find commonalities between visual proficiency and artistic performance. In order to assess visual proficiency, a test of spatial ability is being developed and pilot tested. Student performance on the test will be recorded and examined in relation to two traditional measures of student art…