Iowa State University explored the reliability of the Educational Testing Service's Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit (SPEAK) and an in-house tool as a good predictor of acceptable classroom performance by nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants and studied the relationship between the assistants' background characteristics and…

The article describes a series of studies that was implemented over a five-year period to validate a teacher selection system which demonstrated important relationships between measured teacher verbal and quantitative ability and quality of classroom instruction. The need to validate personnel interview and essay techniques is discussed.…

The contribution of passage variables, question types, and format variables to reading comprehension was assessed for 50 successful and 50 unsuccessful readers. A three-stage conditional regression assessed the predictability of 20 predictor features on item difficulty scores. The location of response information and stem length accounted for…

Ridge estimates (REs) of population beta weights were compared to ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates through computer simulation to evaluate the use of REs in explanatory research. With fixed predictors, there was some question of the consistency of ridge regression, but with random predictors, REs were superior to OLS. (SLD)

Describes the spiral interactive program evaluation model, which is designed to evaluate vocational-technical education programs in secondary schools in Nigeria. Program evaluation is defined; utility oriented and process oriented models for evaluation are described; and internal and external evaluative factors and variables that define each…

Discussion of attitudes of pre-service teachers toward the use of computers focuses on a study of 60 college students at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, which examined the relationship between selected variables (gender and prior computer experience) and computer attitudes (anxiety, confidence, and liking). Recommendations based on the…

Using data from Israeli first-time fathers and mothers collected during pregnancy and while the infants were nine months old, regression analyses showed that personal and contextual sources were almost equally influential in determining the various aspects of fathering. Suggests that personal variables influence transfer of quality from the…

Investigation of the degree to which cue validity predicted the actual strength of grammatical cues as they are used by speakers of Hebrew revealed strong positive correlations between estimated cue validities and actual cue strengths for all but the youngest age groups of speakers. (Author/CB)

Educational reform developments focusing on academic issues are contrasted with those emphasizing teacher performance. The concept of quality assurance in teacher education is considered, as is using student achievement as an indicator of teacher effectiveness. (Author/MT)

The role of biological maturity in behaviors in adolescents which most often are considered as negative by adults was investigated for a normal group of girls. (Author/LMO)

Compared with data from civilian institutions, data from two graduating classes at the United States Military Academy showed extrordinary stability of independently calculated grade point averages from freshman to senior years and no decline in the validity of Scholastic Aptitude Tests and high school class rank as predictors of these GPAs over…

The Classroom Environment Study explored instructional quality and classroom management factors as predictors of student cognitive and affective outcomes. The German contribution to this study, involving 39 fifth-grade classrooms and 39 regular and mathematics teachers over a two-year period, is described and results are presented. (Author/MT)

Patients in an outpatient narcotic antagonist treatment program were followed through their course of treatment. Those who remained longer were found to enter treatment with more stable employment records and less recent opiate use. They also appeared more successful at termination, with better vocational stability, less extraneous drug use, and…

To identify factors that predict institutional placement at discharge from a general hospital, 367 patients were evaluated prospectively upon admission. Prior nursing residence forecasted continued institutionalization; ability to perform instrumental activities of daily life and the presence of strong community support predicted a return home…

A study was conducted to determine which preprofessional academic and personal characteristics were related to academic and clinical success in a physical therapy program. Neither the academic nor personal characteristics studied were strong predictors of performance in the professional physical therapy educational program. (Author/CT)