One difficulty in monitoring the quality of family--professional partnerships has been the lack of a psychometrically acceptable and sufficiently general instrument with which to assess them. The current work describes the development of the Family--Professional Partnership Scale, which assesses parents' perceptions of the importance of and their…

This article presents the full version of "Views on Science and Education (VOSE)" in both Chinese and English for assessing college students' and adults' views about nature of science and attitudes toward teaching issues in nature of science. The development of VOSE has been delineated in the September issue of "Science Education." The results of…

The Urban Corps Expansion Project (UCEP) enrolls youth aged 18 to 23 who have been unsuccessful in the labor market. They are paid a combination of wages, stipends, and incentives that is at least equal to the minimum wage for at least 25 hours of work and 9 hours of basic education and life skills instruction each week. The program incorporates…

The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect funded a project to develop and field-test an evaluation procedure that could be used by interested states or communities to determine the extent of congruity between (1) their provisions for responding to the problems of child abuse and neglect, and (2) provisions prescribed in the Federal Standards…

This paper provides empirical data on two approaches to statistically equate scores derived from the direct assessment of writing. These methods are linear equating and equating based on the general polychotomous form of the Rasch model. Data from the Maryland Functional Writing Test are used to equate scores obtained from two prompts given in…

This report describes the production and pilot test of an assessment instrument for vocational education programs. The instrument was designed to be used following a site visit that includes a 30- to 45-minute interview with the program instructor and a 30-minute interview with one small group of students. Reliability and validity information was…

This report from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction responds to a directive from the Washington State Legislature to provide information on the progress of the development and field testing of minimum procedural standards and model evaluation programs for teachers. It contains a draft of the proposed minimum procedural standards for…

A review of the research literature on systematic instructional design indicates that few empirically supported guidelines exist for testing materials under development and for improving materials on the basis of feedback from potential learners. In an analysis of 17 textbooks on instructional design, eight specific aspects to be considered in…

Plans for the field-testing and implementation of the Accreditation Plus Model (APM) for evaluation of teacher preparation programs are described. Field-testing is taking place in the Center for Teacher Education Evaluation at Tennessee Technological University (Cookeville). The APM is based on the professional judgment approach to program…

In an effort to improve upon Kentucky's existing system for evaluating adult basic education (ABE) programs within the state, an ongoing peer evaluation system was developed and pilot tested. The system was based on a learning center evaluation instrument that was developed by Kentucky Learning Center teachers in January 1985; the "Quality…

This report describes four projects designed to expand the use of volunteers to improve vocational education in urban areas. Following an introduction, four sections look at the 12-month projects in Albuquerque, Philadelphia, Dade County (Florida), and Chicago that field tested a handbook for the design, implementation, and evaluation of…

A project was conducted to develop and implement a curriculum for a series of group sessions designed to assist students in associate degree nursing programs in the socialization process of becoming a nurse. During the curriculum development phase of the project, specific plans and procedures were formulated for 10 monthly sessions that were…

Can a professional committee have any impact, even indirectly, on the well-being of children? The Child Development Committee of the Maternal and Child Health Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) was established in October 1976 with the hope of responding to this challenging question. The Committee determined that one ideal…

A project developed and published a handbook for coordinators of nontraditional occupations (NTO) programs for adult women in postsecondary vocational-technical institutions and a guide for women considering NTO career options. Information about successful elements of postsecondary programs for adult women in NTOs was collected both from a…

A quasi-experimental, pretest/posttest, treatment group/control group design was used to test the effectiveness of 36 entrepreneurship modules. The field test design featured multiple replications at sites across the country. Participating students were enrolled in various types of secondary vocational schools and programs and experienced various…