Investigates the nature of paraprofessionals' work in original cataloging activities at ARL (Association of Research Libraries) institutions and compares findings with those of an earlier study. Findings reveal 77.1% of the cataloging department heads reported paraprofessional involvement in one or more cataloging activities. Reasons cited…

Explores the influence of high and low teacher expectations of students on students' academic performance. Discusses how students feel about teachers who hold them to high standards, and what teachers do the maintain high expectations for all students. (HTH)

Describes implementation of interdisciplinary middle school environmental science curriculum units and factors associated with successful implementation. Notes that strong principal support; structural components such as the teachers having students in common and a common planning time; a strong, intact team; and time for concentrated curriculum…

Examines the information problem-solving (Big Six Skills) approach to performance evaluation, which allows library media specialists to focus on student performance and how it benefits from specific activities. Describes the "Big Six Skills Approach": task definition, information seeking, location and access, use of information,…

Studied the development of third graders' spatial thinking during an instructional unit on area and motion. Found strong positive effects on the transformation of internalized images. Found initial gender differences in spatial thinking, but both boys and girls made substantial gains during instruction. Students applied a unitizing operation to…

Attitudes toward and achievement in a foreign language were studied with 349 high school seniors. Controlling for native language achievement, difficulty in learning the language was an important achievement factor, and gender and years of study contributed to achievement. Implications for instruction are discussed. (SLD)

Shows advocacy in practice as a special education teacher relates how he works with students and parents to ensure equitable and effective education. Describes building a different relationship between school and home via monthly meetings that focus on student progress shown in authentic assessments and activities. Describes a collaboration…

Community enterprise projects link higher education students with the not-for-profit community and provide opportunities to acquire skills and competences not available in commercial experiences. Outlines personal and academic benefits to students, highlights benefits to communities and volunteer groups, and discusses competence assessment…

This discussion of the use of expert performance as the basis for inferring assessment scoring criteria in evaluating student performance considers characteristics of experts and difficulties in use of adult expertise to evaluate student performance. The use of gifted students' performances as benchmarks is suggested as possibly providing…

A study examined 10,835 high school students with disabilities who took the American College Testing entrance examination, to determine whether more coursework completed by the students resulted in higher test scores. It was found that "coursework completed" was the best predictor of scores in math but not in English. (CR)

Nursing assistants (n=126) in a long-term care facility attended a workshop on abuse prevention and aggression reduction. Pre-posttest data showed attitude changes and a statistically significant decline in conflict with residents, although no change was found in resident aggression toward assistants. The workshop was rated excellent by 89% and…

Associations among children's beliefs about intelligence and effort, goal orientations, self-reported learning strategies, and academic achievement were studied with 319 children in grades 3 through 6. Results revealed a coherent set of beliefs about intelligence and academic performance, and that beliefs are powerful predictors of achievement…

Three studies investigated the comprehension of sentences containing the focus particle "only" by children and adults. Contrary to previous findings, two of the studies found that young children made errors predominantly by failing to process contrast information rather than errors in which they failed to use syntactic information to…

Three studies investigated preschoolers' reasoning about ability. Findings suggested sensitivity to mental state information when judging another child's ability, and they perceived positive correlations between effort and academic success, and "niceness" and high academic ability. Comparisons with 9- to 10-year-olds suggest that…

The performance types, concerns, policy values, and models of excellence implied in higher education performance reporting indicators are identified, and the use of performance measures by two- and four-year campuses are compared. (EV)