The primary purpose of this leaflet is to assist the teacher of English in building good achievement tests, with special attention to planning and construction. Subjects covered are general considerations for planning a test, making a blueprint for the test, basic characteristics of effective tests and test questions, selecting the proper test…

The Michigan English Study of Structure for Curriculum Evaluation (MESSAGE) training session involved 40 leaders of English curriculum study in a 7-day intensive program. They studied objective evaluation in terms of behavior, instruction, and institution; approaches to the English curriculum through instructional objectives that include…

This essay on cultural change is intended to provide background reading material for teachers using "The Changing World Today" or "Cultural Change in Mexico and the United States," two textbooks from the Anthropology Curriculum Project. The essay can also be used, however, as a high school semester course in anthropology or as…

The author states that our present teaching methods tend to foster a common intellectual skill: thinking the world to pieces, and that while this skill is very essential, it is only half of understanding. Our planet functions not according to a program of technological reductionism, but as a gestalt, and we are in desperate need of perceiving it…

This research project was carried out to test the hypothesis that symbolic logic instruction, if taught in a secondary school field situation in a way which included specific applications to argumentative composition, would effect greater improvement in composition and logical sentence analysis than if the students received little or no…

The Illinois Inventory of Educational Progress (IIEP) writing assessment is designed to assess students' knowledge and skills on curricular benchmarks. The Rating Guide for Functional Writing is criterion-referenced. The IIEP is neither mandated by statute nor connected to graduation requirements. Randomly selected students are tested each year.…

This teaching guide's principal objective is to engage students in thinking about the relationship among conflict, peace, political transition, and democracy in preparation for writing an essay on the National Peace Essay Contest's topic on "transitions to democracy." Specific objectives are: (1) to increase students' understanding of the nature…

The essays in this collection represent the many ways in which the academic world is in flux. The collection suggests guidance for organizations and individual faculty, looks at decision-making structures, offers advice about empowering a faculty, and addresses the responsibilities of the academic in the current educational climate. The essays,…

This study examined the SAT® II: Writing Subject Test as a predictor of writing performance in college English courses. Writing performance was based on eight writing samples submitted as part of regular course work by students in eight colleges. The samples consisted of drafts and final papers submitted in response to four take-home writing…

Previous research on differences in the reliability, validity, and difficulty of essay tests given under different timing conditions has indicated that giving examinees more time to complete an essay may raise their scores to a certain extent, but does not change the meaning of those scores, or the rank ordering of students. There is no evidence…

The efficacy of education as preparation for work has been seriously questioned since about 1970. Major social changes affecting this relationship are described in this introduction to "New Directions for Education and Work," a new series of quarterly sourcebooks dedicated to exploring and furthering the education-work link. (AF)

From her study of traditional and open-plan British infant schools, the author shows how school buildings and playgrounds can express social and educational principles by controlling freedom of access; the destruction of defenses by open plan architecture being countered, on occasion, by creation of new defenses by teachers. (Editor/SJL)

Data from two surveys are used to draw conclusions about the Black student movement of the sixties, to speculate on future directions of Black student thought and behavior, and to discuss the possible impact of these students on the Black community and the larger political system. (Author/EB)

Examines how much and what kind of knowledge of prior research is needed and wanted by those conducting research, whether it is best acquired by the use of the original reports of prior research, and what the implications are for libraries in light of these questions. (Author/CWM)

Deals with university faculty's and students' perceptions of essay-writing difficulties in examinations and on coursework and ways to improve these problems. Offers a framework for analyzing types of writing problems and offering support. (MG)