Aims to foster scrupulous use of the "at-risk" label for young children by advocating clarification of the term. Proposes caveats educators should consider before applying the label. Among these are (1) risk is not static; (2) standardized test scores are not effective predictors of risk for young children; and (3) children develop in an…

Four studies involving 172 Australian children (133 males and 39 females) were conducted to investigate the usefulness of the British Ability Scales (BAS) as an alternative to the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). The BAS was found to be a suitable alternative to the WISC-R. (SLD)

Discusses decision making and politics in teacher education. In Papua New Guinea, poor command of the English language led to implementation of an intensive, controversial program in teacher education colleges. The article presents comments on teacher education, language, and competency testing in England, Wales, Brazil, Canada, and the United…

Describes two state-mandated programs for institutional accountability in New Jersey (i.e., Basic Skills Assessment Program and College Outcomes Evaluation Program), which function through cooperation between the state's higher education agency and its colleges and universities. Highlights research objectives, procedures, responsibilities,…

The usefulness of latent class modeling in addressing several measurement issues is demonstrated via a study of 74 good and 74 poor readers in grades 5 and 6. Procedures were particularly useful for assessing the hierarchical relation among skills and for exploring issues related to item domains. (SLD)

Average performance on subtests of the Iowa Tests of Educational Development was compared for 177 high school students taking the test under silent reading (standardized) conditions and time limits and students listening to audiotapes of test material as they read the test. Poor readers were helped by the tapes. (SLD)

Six experiments with 42 kindergartners, 190 first graders, and 15 second graders in Germany investigated why arithmetic word problems with an unknown reference set are more difficult for children than are problems with an unknown compare set. Lack of access to flexible language use makes these problems so difficult. (SLD)

Examines methodological problems that metaphorical nonequivalence poses for cross-cultural survey research. Data from 1,105 urban ninth graders (including 105 Laotian Hmong) in St. Paul (Minnesota) illustrate problems of the translation of psychological instruments and the difficulties of administering a single instrument to culturally different…

Presents an account of a self-access language-teaching scheme operated at the University of Bologna (Italy) that was developed to teach English to university students by building a self-access environment available over a computer network. Discusses courseware, test generator, multimedia workstations, student use of laboratories, and future…

Calls into question the data of grammaticality judgment tasks on which several GB-based studies on the second-language acquisition of accusative verbs by Japanese learners of English base their arguments and reports the results of a pilot study. (Author/VWL)

A study examined the extent to which current medical-student evaluation assesses noncognitive clinical skills and behaviors needed by graduates, including small-group conferences, case-based discussion, library research, lifelong learning, reasoned thinking, interpersonal skills, and logical/sequenced history taking and physical examinations.…

In 1998, the first administration of the Massachusetts Educator Certification Test caused a furor. The initial decision to go forward with a statewide test, choice of vendor, decision surrounding the test's development, and the consequences of test administration are described. The Massachusetts experience teaches some important lessons that may…

Highlights specific questions, concerns, and challenges faced by educators, parents, and students concerning assessment, accountability, accommodations, and alternate assessment. Examples of state assessment-accommodation policies are provided and reasons for providing test accommodations, requirements of Individualized Education Programs,…

In a college accounting course, two faculty members experimented with a new approach to office hours, with all communication between students and teachers other than classroom dialog. Through electronic mail and other methods of data transmission. This included distribution of course syllabus, reading lists, study materials, and exams, and…

Explores issues of whose work is actually being evaluated when raters outside the classroom context make judgments about students based on work composed with the support of peers, teachers, and parents. Data from an evaluation of a statewide assessment and a study of scoring elementary school writing portfolios illustrate the issues. (SLD)