Seven articles on higher education in Australia are presented, along with two review articles. "Operation Bootstrap--Reflections of a Staff Developer" (Colin Flood Page) offers views on various aspects of college learning and teaching. Findings of a study on student learning through essay-writing are presented in "Essay Planning and…

A guide to what college-bound students need to know to prepare the most effective college application is presented by three former college admissions officers. Step-by-step strategies are offered to help students take control of the application process and use it to their best advantage. Three basic areas of a college application are examined:…

Analysis of 165 studies (representing the testing of 1,418,899 subjects) that reported data on gender differences in verbal ability indicated a slight female superiority in performance. The difference is so small that it appears that gender differences in verbal ability no longer exist. A major goal was also to define age trends in the pattern of…

Five papers on the assessment of writing ability presented at the Division D meeting are critiqued. It is suggested that it is not possible to conclude--as has Larson in his study of grades 4, 6, and 8--that National Assessment of Educational Progress results do not give evidence of growth in writing ability. Dovell and Buhr, examining approaches…

This study compared the different modes of evaluation at work in Greece's secondary school graduation and university admission process. The goals of the study were (1) to provide background information regarding the contribution of in-school assessment scores and external examination scores to higher education admissions decisions, and (2) to…

The methods used by the General Educational Development Testing Service (GEDTS) to establish and maintain score stability and reading reliability on its direct assessment of writing are described. Using the 1988 site certification and monitoring results of several scoring sites, the focus is on describing how the score scale was established and…

This paper isolates and examines separately three distinct sources of error in essay scores: lack of agreement between raters; inconsistencies in performance within mode of discourse, and inconsistencies in performance between modes of discourse. Essay prompts in the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) Writing Supplement were designed to assess…

The effect of increased writing or planning time on a test of basic college level writing ability was studied. The essay portion of the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test was given to students in nine New Jersey public colleges and three New Jersey public high schools. Each student wrote two essays on two different topics. The first…

Many local and state education agencies in the United States now mandate annual assessments of student writing ability. To comply with these mandates, schools across the country have developed a variety of assessment procedures. To determine the "state of the art" of large-scale writing assessment in the country, a questionnaire was sent…

On the basis that English as a Second Language (ESL) writers encounter cross-cultural interference when dealing with the five-paragraph essay, a study was conducted to examine the writing of three ESL writers in a basic writing class. The case study of one of the subjects, a woman from Hong Kong, focused on her comments relating to the structure…

The purpose, development, administration, and scoring of the Educational Research Institute of British Columbia's (ERIBC) English Placement Test (EPT) are described. This test was designed to assist in the placement of entering college students into the appropriate courses of English usage and composition; it was not intended to be a criterion for…

Data were collected for a brief objective English test, the Test of Standard Written English (TSWE), and for subsequent essay writing performance in four institutions. Data were then pooled across the four institutions and subclassified into four groups: males, females, majorities, and minorities. The groups were then compared with respect to TSWE…

Fourteen planning papers commissioned by the National Institute of Education in preparation for a study of vocational education are presented. The papers are organized into four sections. Section one deals with selected features of federal grant-in-aid programs and contains these papers: "On Implementing the Vocational Amendments of…

While federal legislation has opened doors to non-traditional career opportunities, many women are still training to become teachers, secretaries, and nurses. The most basic influence in socializing young girls into strictly feminine roles is the parental attitudes. Sex-associated roles, role limitations, and male-created barriers are constraints…

This monograph explores implications of the psychology of consciousness for education. The psychology of consciousness encompasses the relationships among behavior, experience, and states of consciousness. It is interpreted to include different states of consciousness, paranormal phenomena, mystical experiences, dreams, psychic healing, and other…