The Urban Education Project developed by Research for Better Schools, Inc., has focused on meeting the needs of urban students in a changing and demanding society. In the second contract year of a 5-year contract, the project developed the Urban Education Restructuring Framework by categorizing relevant literature and school-oriented experiences…

The question examined in this paper is: what is known exactly about variables that affect long-term retention of knowledge learned in school? U. Neisser (1982) asserts that "it is difficult to find even a single study, ancient or modern, of what is retained from academic instruction." Further, popular belief holds that much of the knowledge…

Conventional approaches to teaching and learning perpetrate lies about the nature of knowledge, self-worth, and growth. Working with Foxfire and authentic assessment can offer teachers an opportunity to discover emancipating truths. These approaches demonstrate the value of students' growth in their own competence and in their self-direction. The…

Current research and learning theory suggest that a hierarchy of proportional reasoning exists that can be tested. Using G. Vergnaud's four complexity variables (structure, content, numerical characteristics, and presentation) and T. E. Kieren's model of rational number knowledge building, an epistemic model of proportional reasoning was…

Training in decision-making skills directly contributes to the combat readiness of Battle Staff Officers. More affordable, accessible, and effective training technologies are required to supplement the Command Post Exercises currently in use. This is the final report for a 3-year research and development (R&D) effort aimed toward development…

Two courses on logic gates were administered to 1,191 male and female recruits in Basic Military Training in 3 studies (448, 431, and 312 subjects, respectively) to evaluate the relative validities of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) and the Learning Abilities Measurement Program (LAMP) tests in predicting individual…

This paper reports on the results of a study investigating attitude toward computing for a large group (n=509) of students undertaking an introductory information systems course in an Australian university. Students were surveyed using a two-part questionnaire. The first section dealt with gender, previous computing experience, and level of…

The National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) is addressing problems of evaluation of family literacy programs through portfolio assessment. Beginning in fall 1991, 15 programs began using portfolios to document parent-child interactions. This guide provides a description of the introduction of portfolio assessment into these programs and…

Various parallel forms of the NTE (National Teacher Examinations) Test of Professional Knowledge (NTETPK) have been administered to examinees aspiring to initial teacher certification since 1982. To confirm that recent reported scores are comparable to those from earlier forms, the stability of the score scale was studied using section…

This study was conducted to investigate five research questions concerning computer teachers: (1) How do male and female computer teachers compare in terms of professional preparation and experience? (2) What are the demographics of computer teachers currently in the classroom? (3) How do computer teachers' perceive their male and female students?…

The historical needs for teacher competence in assessment are being increased as educational reform efforts bring new types of assessment into use. A statewide proportional random sample of 1,220 Maryland high school teachers was surveyed to determine the amount of training they had received in classroom assessment and the sources of that…

This paper presents a summary of findings from a review of approximately 225 studies addressing the knowledge and skills of classroom teachers for kindergarten through grade 12 related to the development and use of teacher-made tests. The findings from the review suggest that little change in teachers' testing competence has occurred in the…

The psychological mechanisms that underlie human question asking and answering during comprehension and complex learning were studied. The transcripts of 83 tutoring sessions on research methods for college students and 22 algebra tutoring sessions for seventh graders were collected and analyzed. It was estimated that student questions were about…

This set of curriculum-based assessment instruments is designed to measure the career education knowledge and skills of regular and special education students, as part of the Life Centered Career Education Program, a field-tested curriculum to develop competencies in daily living skills, personal-social skills, and occupational guidance and…

Elementary preservice teachers in institutions certified by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) in the southern U.S. completed the Cultural Diversity Awareness Inventory. Results indicated that subjects exhibited cultural sensitivity in the areas of the culturally diverse family, cross-cultural communication,…