The development of processes for considering student achievement data in the evaluation of teaching is discussed. As an alternative to the inappropriate and indefensible use of standardized test scores, the project on Expected Student Achievement (ESA) of the Kentucky Career Ladder Commission considered a management by objectives, or goal setting…

The Beginning Teacher Assistance Program (BTAP) was established by the Washington Legislature in 1985. The primary intent of the program is to provide assistance to first-year teachers who often need support and guidance from more experienced colleagues. This report to the legislature describes the results for school year 1986-87. In order to…

Symbolic self-completion theory postulates that an individual experiencing a shortcoming in one symbolic dimension of a self-defined goal will emphasize an alternative symbolic dimension; these compensatory efforts are considered self-symbolizing. To test this hypothesis two studies were conducted using college females committed either to raising…

Undergraduate academic advising at University of Pittsburgh's College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) occurs at two levels: freshmen-sophomore and junior-senior. The advising center assigns freshmen and sophomores advisors who are graduate students. In addition to discussing courses and plans, students fill out registration forms each term with their…

This supervisor's guide to writing job training plans for new employees or for staff taking on new assignments covers the benefits to be expected from written training plans, suggests formats for plans, and includes worksheets for general orientation and job training and ideas for overcoming writer's block. Developed at the University of…

This paper describes the range of variation in the key working conditions of 13 new teachers in 6 different high schools in California. A prologue tells the stories of "Alex" and "Michael" to show how two equally promising young teachers may encounter working conditions as different as a cradle is from a crucible. The second…

The under-representation of women in prestigious occupations and the lower average pay women earn has been of concern for many years. This study investigated two alternative explanations for this under-representation of females in prestigious and higher paying occupations. The first explanation was external barriers such as discrimination, and the…

Because there is a great need for support of new teachers, the Department of Elementary Education, California State University, Northridge, developed a Beginner Teacher Support Program: Help Line, with the objective of easing the induction period for new teachers. This paper describes the main elements of the program called Model I, and a proposed…

A guide for students of all ages anticipating a period of study abroad contains useful information about its benefits, the value of establishing purposes and setting goals, and other matters that would be of concern to the first-time student abroad. Topics discussed are: considerations in the selection of programs for study abroad, ways of gaining…

One of a series of refugee orientation materials, this guide to employment is intended to assist Vietnamese refugees in their understanding of the employment situation in the United States and to give them necessary information for obtaining work. The text is in Vietnamese followed by an English-language version, which is not an exact translation…

Since the Hawthorne Studies gave birth to the human relations approach to management, employee motivation, defined as an intervening variable(s) that accounts for factors within an individual that arouse, maintain, and channel behavior toward a goal, has been of much interest. An attempt was made to replicate the factor structure of the Wherry and…

Observation suggests that people who strive for personally important goals disregard failure experiences or disruptions to completing a self-definition and engage in self-symbolizing in the form of positive self-descriptions designed to cover up a lack of support for the self-definition. To examine this self-symbolizing, dyads of females (N=30)…

The purpose of this study is to identify the causes of first year teacher attrition and compile a profile of first year teacher drop-outs. Of 138 beginning teachers who returned a questionnaire concerning their reasons for not returning to their first-year teaching positions in Alabama's public elementary and secondary schools, 47.2 percent left…

A recent Australian controversy over the representation of a same-sex family on national children's television highlighted the fact that early childhood remains a domain of strongly defended heteronormative family privilege. The authors use this controversial event as a springboard into an analysis of the interplay between the hegemonic discourses…