The effectiveness of Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment program (FIE) in improving the cognitive performance of slow learners was tested for one year with low performing vocational high school students in Ontario (Canada). Improved cognitive performance was noted for FIE students, although changes in personality and attitude were substantiated…

Evaluates an Illinois statewide program to remove status offenders from detention. Found substantially fewer youths were referred to detention but more youths than expected were classified as detainable and subjected to court and agency processing. Suggest this may be due to organizational self-interest and the weakness of community structure.…

The Developing Models for Special Education project utilized a novel evaluation design to produce data for national validation. The results of the evaluation are presented, and the problems and benefits associated with both the theoretical model and the further use of this design are discussed. (Author/GDC)

Summarizes major points of NAEYC's revised position, describing how the revision builds on and expands the previous document through the growing knowledge base and the input of practitioners who used the original publication. Discusses the historical context within which the position statement was written, and summarizes the revisions. Discusses…

This paper discusses the practice of social validity assessment in applied behavior analysis, proposes elements that should be included in state-of-the art assessment procedures, offers a taxonomy of consumers to guide the construction and circulation of assessments, and suggests strategies to improve social validity assessment. (JDD)

Examines public debate over private education in the context of the Hollywood dramatic feature film. Analyses four recent films that all portray private schools negatively. Film representation of public schools is more optimistic. Asserts that the films ignore or misrepresent three strengths of private education: effective leadership, small school…

The basic theory of Rasch measurement applies to situations where a person has a certain level of a trait being investigated, and this level of ability is what determines (to within a measurement error) how well the person does on each item in a test. This paper responds to frequent suggestions from colleagues that the use of Rasch measurement…

Research into the technical adequacy of statewide alternate assessments is limited. In this study, the authors analyzed 2 years of data from one state's alternate assessment in written language in an attempt to validate current test score interpretations. More than 1,000 students were included in each year. Findings support the test's technical…

This paper validates the concept of exemplary practice in work-based education (WBE) programs. The validation uses two theoretical frameworks: Social Cognitive Career Theory, and Billett's research on workplace learning. The empirical component of the validation study consists of two widely differing case studies of high school students in work…

We recorded participants' eye movements while they read sentences containing verb-phrase coordination. Results showed evidence of immediate processing disruption when a reflexive pronoun embedded in the conjoined verb phrase mismatched the sentence subject. We argue that this result is incompatible with models of human parsing that employ only…

China is the world's largest market for solar water heating systems, installing 13 million square meters of new systems in 2004, mostly in large cities. Municipal authorities, however, are sensitive to quality and visual impact issues created by this technology deployment. Therefore, there is currently a trend toward developing building integrated…

The Universal Design for Play (UDP) Tool is an instrument designed to evaluate the presence of universal design (UD) features in toys. This study evaluated its psychometric properties, including content validity, construct validity, and test-retest reliability. The UDP tool was designed to assist in selecting toys most appropriate for children…

In an effort to individualize instruction and improve the effectiveness of instructor-learner transactions, education and instructional research has addressed a wide assortment of learner variables and assessed their relationships to instructional methods and environments. Adult education has recently seen the development by Conti and Kolody of a…

Multiple matrix sampling is a data collection technique that ensures accuracy and efficiency in group performance. It has been widely used in large-scale curriculum evaluation since the 1980s. However, the design does not always fully embrace the dynamics of local evaluation demands. The purpose of this study is to introduce a modified matrix…

Spearman's "Law of Diminishing Returns" states that the g saturation of a test is greater for individuals with lower, rather than higher, test scores, and that it decreases with age. A common methodological problem in testing Spearman's "Law of Diminishing Returns" with respect to ability differentiation is how to create the…