Challenges and approaches for academic skills improvement programs for college students are discussed. Important prerequisites are a needs assessment and long-range plan and an academic skills improvement program based on theory and existing models. Identifying a set of supportive people with power and resources at an institution is also needed.…

The topic of assessment is addressed in three papers from the 1987 national conference on assessment in higher education. In "Assessing Content and Process: Challenges for the New Assessments," Lee S. Shulman considers the ongoing debates about assessment that revolve around the question of what is worth assessing. Attention is focused…

Based on an integrated approach to reading instruction, this report of the 1985 Manitoba Reading Assessment includes a reading survey test, with an individual measure of listening-speaking and oral and silent reading performance, a reading interest inventory, and a teacher questionnaire. The 1985 Assessment also re-administered selected items from…

This study examined one urbanized Southeastern county school district's experience in attempting to implement an educational reform program that called, among other things, for higher standards. By focusing on standardized norm-based and criterion-referenced educational tests administered to students according to grade level, this school system…

Year-long case studies of instructional practices in elementary school mathematics were analyzed to describe testing practices of seven teachers in three school districts in Michigan and the uses those teachers made of test results. Focused on were: (1) curriculum-embedded tests (in particular the Management By Objectives system); (2) the use of…

A long-range school improvement program, under the direction of the Pennsylvania State Department of Education, was developed to coordinate and articulate the curriculum, as well as to structure school management and other district operations. Featured in the plan are: (1) a statewide testing program called "Educational Quality…

A study was conducted at Broward Community College (BCC) to compare the performance on the College Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) of examinees with college preparatory experience to that of examinees without this experience. Data were drawn from CLAST tapes for the 1988-89 academic year and from BCC's admissions file. Passing rates for each…

This document presents a review of recent research efforts on the congnitive domain as it relates to teaching and learning in the classroom, and provides a syntheses of research obtained over the past 25 years. Focus is given to correlational and experimental studies indicating a significant positive relationship between certain teacher behaviors…

The program for gifted and talented students in the Austin Independent School District consists of 126 programs in grades K-12 to develop skills and abilities in academic subjects, music, art, problem-solving, and coping with giftedness. The program has been in effect since 1975. The focus of the evaluation in 1981-82 is the identification of…

The question of whether performance measures may be more accurate than examination methods to assess an individual's abilities and knowledge is examined, based on a literature review. An information processing view that focuses on the internal activities of thinking and the relationship to external stimuli is considered. Information processing…

A theoretical framework is presented to investigate the interactions of certain motivational factors with test-wiseness. Test performance is a function of two independent elements: the cognitive learning in the classroom situation and the test-wiseness in the testing situation. These situations are associated with independent sets of affective…

This study matched teacher and professor perspectives of preservice educational measurement courses. Twenty-eight professors from different colleges in seven states and 377 teachers from elementary and secondary schools in one midwestern state responded via mailed questionnaire in which: professors were asked to assess the emphasis they give to…

The performance of two groups of adult students on the General Educational Development (GED) test was compared to determine whether there was a relationship between the level of student performance on a timed versus non-timed GED test. Each group consisted of the first three hundred students who took the test at twenty-six different testing…

This guide to evaluation of home economics instruction covers five major topic areas: (1) Purposes for evaluating pupil learning; (2) steps to take in developing the needed evaluation techniques; (3) suggested means to achieving purposes related to evaluation; (4) tips on improving evaluative practices, and (5) notes on enlisting student help in…