A study involved 20 teachers who volunteered to use the horizontal evaluation model. Described are three strong themes that emerged: (1) teachers altered their views about evaluation; (2) teachers challenged the prevailing school practice rationality; and (3) teachers took some modest steps toward changing school relations. (SI)

Defines "quality" in terms of community college mission and discusses approaches to institutional assessment. Reports on a study of two-year college publications on quality, indicating that key variables in the colleges' definitions of quality included accessibility, faculty, curriculum, student support services, transferability of credit, and job…

Examines the major transactions regarding violence during the course of transcribed psychiatric evaluations for 92 recently violent patients. Coded and cross-tabulated the mentioning and action taken for patients describing violence. Findings support a progressive decrease in the discussion of violence and apparent breaches in the flow of…

Explores student assessment by portfolio approach as used in the Arts PROPEL project. Argues that the content of art knowledge is embedded in a process approach in which techniques, elements, formal analysis, and historical images can be explored. Observes that learning is an active process and teacher student interactions concerning the portfolio…

This article promotes the use of contextual constructionism in evaluation research. The call for truth in sentencing in Tennessee (and across the country) is used to illustrate the conflict among stakeholders that arises from program evaluation and to show how their multiple realities make a contextual constructionist approach pertinent. (SLD)

Describes the findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress's "Reading Report Card" issued in September 1993. Critiques the report for methodological reasons. Argues that the report is virtually worthless regarding the reading skills of American students and should receive a failing mark. (HB)

Offers a retrospective deconstruction of research compromises undertaken during "quick and dirty" contract evaluation. Identifies constraining changes in the nature of research contexts and develops a positive view of methodological developments, that might create "transgressive validity." Considers notions of "hybridity" in research methodology…

The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC), which was designed to assess both children's and adolescents' emotional disorders, personality constructs, and behavior problems, is discussed. Discusses the BASC technical manual, and psychometric properties such as norms, reliability, and validity. Offers favorable commentary for the BASC. (KW)

The authors investigated the structure and measurement of ethnic identity using the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; J. S. Phinney, 1992) on a diverse sample of Asian American college students. The authors drew upon 3 previously published datasets to examine the factor structure of the MEIM, initial reliability and construct validity,…

The authors evaluated self-report instruments currently being used to assess children and adolescents with psychopathic personality traits with respect to their reliability, validity, and research utility. Comprehensive searches across multiple computerized bibliographic databases were conducted and supplemented with manual searches. A total of 30…

The relationship between intelligence and personality has been of scientific interest for over 100 years. However, most contemporary estimates of these relationships are limited because they do not separate the variance due to general and narrow cognitive abilities. This study demonstrates that this methodological oversight can distort estimates…

This article addresses the work on rethinking the preparatory function in school administration in the US in a number of ways (e.g., unpacking the larger environmental forces that are fueling the turmoil in school administration). More recently, we have turned our attention to the question of how research on the preparation of school leaders can…

Functional analysis methodology has become the hallmark of behavioral assessment, yielding a determination of behavioral function in roughly 96% of the cases published (Hanley, Iwata, & McCord, 2003). Some authors have suggested that incorporating the results of a descriptive assessment into the design of a functional analysis may be useful in…

Reliable Digit Span (RDS) is an indicator used to assess the validity of cognitive test performance. Scores of 7 or lower suggest poor effort or negative response bias. The possibility that RDS scores are also affected by pain has not been addressed thus potentially threatening RDS specificity. The current study used cold pressor-induced pain to…

This descriptive study investigates the diffusion of electronic portfolios in preservice teacher education by documenting the context and emergent practices in six programs identified as mature in their implementation. Context variables examined include prior use of paper portfolios, pressures for standards-based assessment, and leadership and…