This policy paper provides a list of questions and associated strategies that parents and parent organizations can address in an effort to ensure that statewide assessment systems fully and fairly include students with disabilities as required by the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and other federal laws.…

Designed for high school students interested in careers in special education and related services, this leaflet discusses the role of an educational diagnostician. It describes the education and personal qualities required to become an educational diagnostician, the job outlook and advancement for a career as an educational diagnostician, and…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of replacing multiple-choice questions in tutorial software practice interactions with a learning strategy (i.e., learner-generated summaries) on immediate recall. Subjects were 35 students--32 females and 3 males--from an undergraduate computer course in the College of Education at…

Assessments should improve performance by providing usable feedback, and should not merely audit it. Problems with educational accountability policies stem from a flawed view of student assessment. Intellectual excellence cannot be obtained via one-time mandated tests composed of proxies for real challenges. Common standards should be developed…

The use of vocational assessment instruments with Texas special needs students was investigated as part of the requirements of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act. A nonrandom sampling method was used to identify the population. Transition from School to Work Coordinators in each of 20 regions collected 130 completed survey instruments…

A series of eight videoconferences was designed to help educational professionals improve schools by applying knowledge gained from research. During the videoconference programs, which are transmitted by satellite to facilities with receiving capacity, viewers can interact by telephone with the program presenters. Each program covers a specific…

The report "UNO Act Class Profile, 1989-90" in the first of two serial issues presents salient parts of data from "The Class Profile Report" of the American College Testing (ACT) Corporation, which provides detailed information concerning the academic past of 1,359 freshmen entering the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) in…

This study assessed whether the Academic Misconduct Survey (AMS) can distinguish groups of teacher education students relative to their propensity toward various forms of misconduct. Focus was on identifying clusters of persons within each school who had a propensity toward the various academic misconduct constructs. The AMS includes 41…

The third year of the partial immersion program in grades one through three at Key Elementary School (Arlington, Virginia), where half the day is taught in English and half in Spanish, is reported. The review includes classroom observations, student and teacher interviews, student assessment, and parent and staff interviews. Student assessments…

The College Outcome Measures Program (COMP) objective test is used by colleges and universities to monitor the success of their undergraduate programs and as part of general assessment efforts. At Northeast Missouri State University (Kirksville), 102 students were identified as having suspect COMP scores based on the three criteria of: (1) COMP…

Since the authorization of the use of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) through the Trial State Assessment to provide state-based data, debate over the proposed expansion of the NAEP has strengthened. To assist states in analyzing and interpreting 1990 data on eighth-grade mathematics and to assist in planning subsequent NAEP…

To investigate the influence of student modes of learning, or preferences for modes of learning, researchers at the Chulalongkorn University (Thailand) studied 97 Thai students who were beginners of English. It was hypothesized that: (1) aural and visual modes of listening and reading are related to achievement in English; (2) language aptitude,…

This report describes the results of an assessment of social studies for grades 4, 8, and 10 of English language schools in Manitoba. Students in each grade were given a written test, the results of which are reported here. The results of a survey of teachers of each grade also are reported. Additionally, interviews with grade four teachers and an…

The effect of alternating criterion-referenced tests (CRTs) with norm-referenced tests (NRTs) when evaluating schools was studied in a sample of 242 Louisiana public elementary schools accounting for over 18,000 third graders tested in 1989. The study used five separate multiple regression models, each producing studentized residuals used as…

Because of concerns about the validity of tests used in education and employment, a consultation on June 16, 1989, focused on tests of ability, achievement, and other skills. Invited experts were asked to address a set of issues common to both education and employment testing, primarily related to test construction procedures and how to establish…