Three teacher educators at two colleges in western New York have used content analysis to analyze prospective undergraduate and graduate students' applications to their early childhood education programs. Despite a number of apparent differences between both the applicants and the programs to which they were applying, there was a remarkable degree…

This paper reports a comparison of human and computer marking of approximately 600 essays produced by 11-year-olds in the UK. Each essay script was scored by three human markers. Scripts were also scored by the "e-rater" program. There was a good agreement between human and machine marking. Scripts with highly discrepant scores were…

In this investigation, the use of the Alice programming language in an introductory computing class was studied from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. Students in an introductory computing class participated in a 2.5-week unit to learn programming through the graphical programming environment of Alice. Quantitatively, students were…

This study examined how seductive details affect on-line processing of a technical, scientific text. In Experiment 1, each sentence from the experimental text was rated for interest and importance. Participants rated seductive details as being more interesting but less important than main ideas. In Experiment 2, we examined the effect of seductive…

Because a high percentage of Advanced Placement English Language and Composition (APELC) students from a small rural high school were receiving below-average grades on the Advanced Placement Examination, a 10-week composition program was designed and implemented. The composition program included three main strategies: (1) the use of the rubric as…

This report provides a two-part evaluation of the IntelliMetric[SM] automated essay scoring system based on its performance scoring essays from the Analytic Writing Assessment of the Graduate Management Admission Test[TM] (GMAT[TM]). The IntelliMetric system performance is first compared to that of individual human raters, a Bayesian system…

The increased use of constructed-response items, like essays, creates a need for tools to score these responses automatically in part or as a whole. This study explores one approach to analyzing essay-length natural language constructed-responses. A decision model for scoring essays was developed and evaluated. The decision model uses…

Presents the arguments for allowing students a sufficient amount of examination time to complete the essay section of the sixth form English tests. (RB)

Considered the views of T. S. Eliot on education, including four essays he wrote entitled, "The Aims of Education". (RK)

Based on the premise that the most viable form of discovery for the ethnographer is the personal essay--which has been called "the expression of the self thinking" (Alfred Kazin) or writing as learning and thinking--this paper examines the work of anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the light of that definition. Particular attention is…

A BIBLIOGRAPHIC LISTING WAS COMPILED IN CONNECTION WITH A RESEARCH PROJECT ON THE SYNTAX OF CONTEMPORARY BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE. THE DOCUMENT WAS NOT INTENDED TO BE AN EXHAUSTIVE INVENTORY OF CONTEMPORARY BRAZILIAN LITERATURE. SUBJECTS INCLUDED ARE FICTION AND NON-FICTION IN THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES. ANNOTATIONS ARE NOT INCLUDED. THE DATES…

THIS IS A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS PRODUCED BY MEMBERS OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR REPRESENTING THE VARIOUS BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES. THE GROUP WAS GIVEN THE ASSIGNMENT OF CONCEPTUALIZING THE INFLUENCES OF MASS MEDIA UPON EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION. THE SEMINAR WAS OF A YEAR'S DURATION AND WAS HELD AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI. THE GROUP, IN…

Two papers and several commentaries discuss a viable moral framework for foreign policy. It is hoped that the thought of some of the world's major thinkers can provide at least the foundations for a more enduring approach to the issues of political morality. The two main papers are by Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president of the…

The 24 pieces in this collection were written by the 22 Indiana high school students who were among the winners in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 1977 Achievement Awards competition. The selections include impromptu themes written on a topic assigned by NCTE, as well as samples of the studetns' essays, short stories, poems, and…