This study of 48 individuals with visual impairments (16 middle-aged with experience in synthetic speech, 16 middle-aged inexperienced, and 16 older inexperienced) found that speech synthesis, compared to natural speech, generally yielded lower results with respect to memory and understanding of texts. Experience had no effect on performance.…

Contends that evaluating teaching is just as important as evaluating students. Argues that most teacher evaluation does not examine what students actually learn from the teacher. Recommends the use of written entry performance tests and subsequent written tests to evaluate teaching effectiveness. (CFR)

Discussions conducted with people with visual impairments indicated that clients undergoing mobility training first need to overcome inhibitions, stress, and anxieties, which are influenced by the timing of and their readiness for mobility training, insufficient information about mobility, feelings of isolation and helplessness, and lack of…

A survey of 66 Hong Kong companies and factories identified factors affecting employers' decisions to hire workers with mental handicaps. The five most important factors were emotional problems and personalities of workers, workers' ability to perform the job, availability of low-level jobs, productivity of workers, and possible special…

In the current article, effects of socially induced metacognitive activities on performance of 60 French elementary and secondary school students (grades 3 through 9) were studied. Performance of low-achievement students was higher in a social comparison situation than an ordinary academic situation. A strong contingent relationship between social…

Summarizes an exploratory study to identify administrative stress and socialization variables that affect the attitudes and performance of new and experienced urban principals. The study found that new and experienced principals possessed remarkably similar attitudes and that experienced principals perceive greater role conflict than do new…

This paper describes the expressive communication and language of seven hearing mothers and their infants with deafness. Mothers who signed most frequently reported that other family members and friends were also learning and using signs. Frequency of infants' sign production at 18 months correlated with frequency of mothers' sign production when…

This study of 343 elementary school students with learning disabilities examined whether different approaches to teachers' use of progress monitoring data related to differences in achievement. Achievement differences were not found to relate to varying data utilization approaches. The two factors consistently related to student reading progress…

Discusses internal and external evaluations of interactive video teletraining (IVT) based on experiences of the Army's Teletraining Network (TNET). Highlights include keeping evaluation criteria and standards relevant to the program; extraneous influences, positive or negative; the influence of student and teacher attitudes; and formative and…

Asked counseling service clients (n=232) to rank beliefs about causes of psychological problems and preferences for counseling orientation, and subset (n=69) to rate counselor's credibility and satisfaction with counseling. Found that etiology-belief similarity between counselor and client was not related to ratings of counselor or satisfaction…

Compares university professors', high school classroom teachers', and student teachers' self-evaluation of student teachers' effectiveness with those of high school student evaluations of student teacher effectiveness. Finds that high school student evaluations are very comparable to the more "expert" evaluation. Supports the use of student…

This study evaluated the recognition and retention of transparent and nontransparent manual signs by 50 sign-naive hearing college freshmen. There was a significant decrease in the number of nontransparent signs retained as the period of time after training increased. Implications for sign language training with nonverbal hearing persons are…

Two fourth grade boys with learning disabilities learned to use the Bank Street Writer III word processing and spelling checker program to edit spelling errors. Both boys learned to manage the spell-checking process and increased the spelling accuracy of their edited texts. Differences in their learning processes and the tool's limitations are…

Small-group instructional diagnosis uses an outside facilitator to elicit college student feedback on instruction. At Purdue University (Indiana), the technique has been successfully used in 46 departments. It is usually conducted at midterm, is nondirective, is oral, uses consensus, tends to produce honest responses, and is externally controlled.…

Describes a four-step process to involve teachers in self-evaluation that results in performance ownership. When supervisors incorporate teacher self-assessments into classroom observation reports, teachers are more willing to engage in follow-up professional growth activities and perceive supervisors as helpers in the process. (MLH)