Discusses the consequences for equity issues in testing and evaluation that come with the inclusion of performance assessment components in public examinations. Uses data from the British General Certificate of Secondary Education to show effects on course work offered and gender equity and that student evaluation does not always function as…

Describes the continuing development of an authentic assessment work-in-progress, focusing on efforts to develop and implement an assessment process and tool of particular significance to multicultural and multilingual instructional settings. The context is a writing assessment for multicultural and multilingual elementary school students. (SLD)

Presents results of an empirical study on the changes of students' expectations and perceptions of service quality in teaching. Results show that, whereas students' expectations appear to be relatively stable over the time of the study, their perceptions of service quality change over time and their perceived service quality level decreases as…

Examined ability of individuals biologically predisposed to poor spatial skills to capitalize on opportunities to develop these skills. Found that for girls with brothers, those from all right-handed families had lower mental-rotation scores than did others. Among children participating in mental-rotation-type activities with their brothers,…

This study examined how 14 Hispanic adolescents either with or without learning disabilities fared academically and socially during the transition from elementary to middle school. Students had been in a sixth grade consultation/collaboration inclusive classroom. Findings suggested that both groups of students experienced the transition similarly…

Results of a study of 20 creative people in Brazil found they felt that their mothers had most influenced their creativity and mentored them, that many had experienced feelings of loneliness and being different from their adolescent peers, and that they had received understanding, acceptance, and admiration from their teachers during elementary…

A British study that compared 12 musically gifted children (ages 8- 11) and 12 children gifted in fine arts with controls, found environmental circumstances, especially at home, were of vital importance for exceptionally high-level performance, even when there was provision at schools for developing talent. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Reviews the development phase of a collaborative inquiry initiative undertaken among staff in the Center for Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada, to identify competencies required of master's-level experts in distance education. The competencies are clustered in four skill sets, and basic procedures for developing a taxonomy of…

Responds to Needham and Baillargeon's criticisms and offers an alternative resolution of the conflicting results between the laboratories regarding abilities of infants less than 12 months to use property/featural information for object individuation. Maintains that kind concepts are acquired as infants approach their first birthday and that…

Provides suggestions on how to interweave data collected from authentic student writing samples (student or teacher portfolios) into classroom instructional planning and implementations. Shares practical hands-on ideas for teachers of students with learning disabilities and/or low achievers. Notes examples of student performance authentication…

Presents content standards for performance-based accountability systems, which should not be driven by a single indicator. Systems must consider school context and individual student differences; monitor and support equitable learning opportunities, long-term professional development opportunities, and classroom assessments; and allow for…

Presents ideas about how the workplace affects job performance, how to diagnose workplace-related problems, and how to make modest improvements. Highlights include: workplace-imposed limits on performance; the mental and physical steps of work; screening behavior; how adaptation interferes with performance; task- and human-based workspaces;…

Investigates the information representation power of different modalities in the video data in order to collect empirical evidence for video surrogate creation and thus better support effective video browsing and information retrieval. Three types of video surrogates were created and compared under two user tasks--verbal comprehension and visual…

Examines the relationship between childrens scores on a standardized test of musical aptitude, Gordons Primary Measures of Music Audiation, and their performance on specific musical tasks. Suggests a need for a type of test that provides a broader perspective of childrens musical abilities, since there is no correlation between the test and tasks.…

Approximately 600 8th-grade pupils in 25 classrooms in Eastern Slovakia evaluated their math and Slovak language classes for creativity on the Origin-Pawn Questionnaire. Results were correlated with teacher observations by trained observers. Results are discussed in terms of classroom activity patterns and climate differences related to activity…