This report on the Pennsylvania statewide assessment program answers two questions: (1) what are minimum competencies?; and (2) for whom are competencies really minimal? (Author/MP)

Discusses the contributions of other fields to educational technology, i.e., communications, management science, and behavioral sciences. Other considerations include the enduring effects of programed instruction, performance assessment for instruction improvement, and the future of educational technology for educational improvement. (VT)

In a survey of 51 state science supervisors, 93 percent of the supervisors who replied said that state-wide minimum-competency testing did not assess science learning. (BB)

The Pennsylvania College of Podiatric Medicine is exploring the possibility of using a curriculum based on the systematic feed-forward establishment of competency-based terminal performance objectives to replace the cyclic feedback approach of curricular design presently being used. (Author/LBH)

The Institute for Personal and Career Development of Central Michigan University offers external degree programs for adult learners using nontraditional study. The competency-based programs described include credit given for the educational background and relevant career-life experiences of registered nurses in Michigan. (Author/LBH)

Distributive education teachers who had received a set of learning activity packages for the Inter-State Distributive Education Curriculum Consortium learning system were surveyed to determine their attitudes toward perceived barriers to implementing the system. Methods and procedures, findings, and conclusions of the author's doctoral research…

A personalized competency-based instructional strategy was designed and evaluated as an alternative to the traditional teacher-directed method. There was no difference in mean gain scores between the two groups for cognitive objectives, but the experimental strategy was superior in teaching psychomotor competencies. Student responses to the PSI…

Failure in the areas of student social responsibility, social integration, and personal development has led schools to focus on various forms of outcome based education. In this article, three outcome based models are discussed in relation to the current surge of competency based educational programs. (GC)

Essential to a competency-based curriculum, according to the authors, are the concepts of career development, career choice, and career guidance in different subject areas and grade levels. They present a model delivery system of learning objectives and activities for various controllable and noncontrollable factors. (MF)

In an effort to meet the demands made on electricity and electronics training today, specific suggestions are given for the development of an instructional program that is based on employment need, that focuses on occupational clusters, and that can be implemented in the electronics area with relative ease. (SH)

A thorough knowledge of the relationship of language and reading will lead to more effective teaching than following a list of basic skills. (MKM)

Levels of competency, specific tasks within each level, and various activities used to teach each task at the University of Maryland are discussed. The student evaluation instrument is also described, along with data involving completed tasks, grades, and information from course/instructor evaluations. (LBH)

Occupational competency measures to attest to student standing in vocational education (comparable to the Scholastic Aptitude Tests for college-bound students) and also to judge effectiveness of vocational teachers are needed, but existing measures are inadequate, according to the authors. A midpoint accreditation for the vocational program…

Implementation of this competency-based data processing course avoided the high start-up costs of self-paced instructional methodology, yet still resulted in increases in (1) levels of student competency, (2) student satisfaction, (3) average grade, (4) positive level of student evaluation of the teacher, and (5) proportion of students completing…

Student Affairs programs are--and must--be part of the educational enterprise of higher education, focusing on life-centered and life-long competencies. (Author)