The necessity of controlling the order in which trained essay raters for a statewide writing assessment program receive student essays was studied. The underlying theoretical question concerns possible rater bias caused by raters reading long strings of essays of homogeneous quality; this problem is usually referred to as context effect or…

Six university English departments collaborated in this examination of the differences between multiple-choice and essay tests in evaluating writing skills. The study also investigated ways the two tools can complement one another, ways to improve cost effectiveness of essay testing, and ways to integrate assessment and the educational process.…

This study addressed seven questions regarding the methods used in setting passing scores on the essay subtest of the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) Communication Skills test for the North Carolina State Board of Education. North Carolina uses these tests to screen prospective applicants to teacher education programs. The judges (five college…

As part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, both an introspection and an essay study were conducted with Turkish university prep-school students and junior college students to determine their responses to three fairytales: "The Snake, the Fox, and the Man,""The Gold Apple," and "Per Smed's Whip."…

This study analyzes the types and frequencies of hedges and intensifiers employed in NS and NNS academic essays included in a corpus of L1 and L2 student academic texts (745 essays/220,747 words). The overarching goal of this investigation is to focus on these lexical and syntactic features of written discourse because they effectively lend…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in postsecondary marketing student performance on essay tests based on test format (i.e., computer-based or handwritten). Specifically, the variables of performance, test completion time, and gender were explored for differences based on essay test format. Results of the study…

Because many incoming geoscience students did not acknowledge their previous personal encounters with the earth's geological processes or products, we developed the Geological Sense of Place (GSP) template as a convenient way to assess students' earth science backgrounds through short answer, mini-essay, and induced associative responses. The GSP…

Nineteen chapters of information, organized into five units, are provided in this 28th yearbook of the American Council on Industrial Arts Teacher Education. Unit I, entitled "A Historical and Philosophical Orientation to Industrial Arts" contains five chapters that examine these topics: the movements that led to contemporary industrial…

This paper describes an experiment that was undertaken to examine the usefulness of the cloze test as an objective measure of a native speaker's writing ability. A modified version of the cloze test used by Oller and others to measure integrative language skills in non-native speakers was given to 100 freshman English students. The test…

THIS STUDY, CONDUCTED BY THE WISCONSIN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE-ARTS CURRICULUM PROJECT, DESCRIBES, ANALYZES, AND EVALUATES 16 STANDARDIZED ENGLISH TESTS OF USAGE AND COMPOSITION. THE TESTS CHOSEN WERE THOSE FREQUENTLY USED THROUGHOUT WISCONSIN, EXCLUSIVE OF TESTS DESIGNED FOR COLLEGE-PREPARATORY STUDENTS AND TESTS OF READING ABILITY, SPEECH, AND…

ALTHOUGH MOST EDUCATORS AGREE THAT EXAMINATIONS PERFORM AN IMPORTANT FUNCTION IN APPRAISING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, SOME CLAIM THAT MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS DEGENERATE INTO A GAME OF "BEAT THE MONKEY," I.E., ANSWERING MORE THAN 25 PERCENT OF THE ITEMS CORRECTLY, THE RATING EVEN A MONKEY COULD BE EXPECTED TO RECEIVE. SAMPLE STUDIES REVEAL THAT THE…

The journal, written by Connecticut teachers, covers various aspects of social studies education in that state. The objectives are to serve as a forum for exchange of information, to be a catalyst for dialogue on issues of common concern, and to be a source of mutual support and professional growth. The journal is comprised of five articles. The…

The development and functioning of urban social networks in highly politicized environments--particularly, the neighborhood based community organization, political coalition building of urban mayors, and community action programs--suggest implications for building locally based educational reform capacity through network development. Community…

CONTAINED ARE QUESTIONS AND TESTS TO EVALUATE ACHIEVEMENT IN KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE THIRD LEVEL COURSE IN SCIENCE FOR THE HIGHER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE IN NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA. THE QUESTIONS ARE BASED ON THE OFFICIAL SYLLABUS OF THE BOARD OF SENIOR SCHOOL STUDIES. THE QUESTIONS REFLECT THE LEVELS OF UNDERSTANDING AS DEVELOPED BY…

The new emphasis on combining language and culture teaching finds all teachers busy updating and improving their materials. However, feedback on how successful they are in their attempts is limited. Revealing insights into the image of Germany held by high school students can be gained from the 1974 and 1975 essays, written by applicants for the…