This article deals with German academic emigres who fled Hitler after 1933 and established their refuge at the American-based Black Mountain College in North Carolina, founded as an alternative to traditional institutions of higher education in that very year. Of particular consideration are the contributions of noted Bauhaus master Josef Albers…

From November 8 to December 12, 2007, Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc., on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, interviewed 301 employers whose companies have at least 25 employees and report that 25% or more of their new hires hold at least a bachelor's degree from a four-year college. Employers are satisfied…

The Internet is a significant information resource for students due to the ease of access it allows to a vast amount of information. As the quality of the information on the Internet varies, it is important that students are able to evaluate such information critically. The aim of the study was to investigate how students evaluate Internet sources…

This volume is the first in a set of two to be published as the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) yearbook for 2008. Planning for the volumes began more than five years ago, when the Society's Board of Directors expressed an interest in taking steps to encourage a more expansive, robust, and inclusive dialogue about education in…

It has long been established that self-assessment and goal-setting are regular features of the writing process of experienced writers. It has also been demonstrated that students develop more power and control over their writing when they are encouraged to become their own evaluators. Therefore, to help beginning writers think and act more like…

Since 1991, the U.S. has had a national research and development (R&D) center focused on programs that help adults to improve their language, literacy, and numeracy skills; to acquire a General Educational Development (GED) or other high school certification; and to transition into postsecondary education or training. For the first five years,…

Background/Context: This essay reviews recent demographic literature on school transitions. I describe how a demographic perspective, by which I mean using methods that are standard in the study of population processes, is a useful way to examine differences in access to and completion of post secondary schooling in the United States.…

The compositions or essay tests of second language learners are difficult to mark and evaluate. It has been suggested that the only way to achieve objectivity is to abolish all criteria except formal correctness, as it is the only one that can be measured and statistically evaluated. Attempts have been made to establish other criteria. A varied…

This article explores commonalties between literacy instruction and learning to understand the symbolic languages of the visual and performing arts. A detailed case study of an urban professional development program for secondary arts teachers looks at the learning initiated by writing assignments that prompted students to reflect on arts…

This article explores the motives and evolving identities of one group of graduate students enrolled in a teacher education program at an Ivy League university, who made the choice to teach in urban classrooms. The authors examine the perspectives these candidates give to the process of learning to teach and how their identities are tempered,…

This paper presents guidelines for students attending New Hampshire Technical College at Manchester who are preparing term papers or short essays, and can serve as guidelines for students in other colleges as well. The paper discusses the outline; setting the parameters; sections of a term paper; text format; documentation; bibliographic format;…

If a student writes two essays, the score reliability can be estimated from the correlation between essays. However, if the essays are in different modes or require different skills, the reliability may be underestimated from the correlation. In Advanced Placement history examinations, students wrote one standard essay and one essay that required…

This volume contains a collection of essays, reflections, and other writings (many of which originally appeared in several journals) on the relations among self and school and community. The first selection is an obituary of Fritz Perls, a leader of Gestalt therapy. The second essay, "A Social and Political Reassessment of the Work of Wilhelm…

The purpose of this study was to examine rater, domain, and gender influences on the assessed quality of student writing using weighted and unweighted scores. Twenty rates were randomly selected from a group of 87 operational raters contracted to rate essays as part of the 1993 field test of the Georgia High School Writing Test. All of the raters…

The purpose of this study was to describe the Rasch model for measurement and apply the model to examine the relationship between raters, domains of written compositions, and student writing ability. Twenty raters were randomly selected from a group of 87 operational raters contracted to rate essays as part of the 1993 field test of the Georgia…