Self-serving biases in attribution have been widely explored; however, the effects of motivational factors on observers' causal attributions have been neglected in attribution research. To investigate these effects, observers' liking and perceived similarity toward a target person were manipulated. Subjects were 80 college students. The observer…

A code to systematically observe preschool settings in which handicapped children were placed was designed to determine the types of interaction and play behavior that occurs in these settings. The code records the following information: play area the child is in, how many children are in the same area, the play behavior the child is undertaking,…

Classroom observation represents a vital link among the student, teacher, and principal. Teacher observation strategies include the following: (1) give every staff member the option of a preobservation conference; (2) include the assistant principals in the process; (3) spend a day observing a particular department; and (4) make the…

Intended for teachers of the learning disabled (LD), the guide addresses philosophical and procedural issues in assessment. The first section introduces a philosophical framework which views assessment as an ongoing, goal-directed, integral part of the overall educational process. The remainder of the guide focuses on Wisconsin's procedures for…

Two papers on performance indicators are presented: (1) "Quality Control in Education: The Use of Performance Indicators," by Ernest Theodossin, and (2) "Developing and Using a Performance Indicator Instrument," by Theodossin and Craig Thomson. The first paper looks at the relationship between colleges and the manufacturing…

This study examined relationships among teachers' management effectiveness ratings, student achievement, social and academic participation structures, patterns of instructional sequencing, and teachers' contributions to thematic development in classroom lessons. Representative case samples were selected to explore effective and less effective…

The Certified School Personnel Evaluation Pilot Program (Outside Evaluator Project) has two primary purposes. The first is to compare evaluations performed by persons employed by an agency other than the units to which they are assigned with evaluations performed by locally-employed personnel. The second purpose is to determine the effectiveness…

In a microsupervision workshop experiment designed to investigate group differences in acquiring an indirect style of supervisory conference behavior, 18 elementary school inservice teachers were randomly assigned to a video-modeling, written-modeling and performance-feedback treatment or non-treatment. Criterion performances were the frequency…

An endless debate in social science research focuses on whether or not there is a philosophical basis for justifying the application of scientific methods to social inquiry. A review of the philosophies of various scholars in the field indicates that there is no single procedure for arriving at a valid statement in a scientific inquiry. Natural…

The articles in this volume, focusing on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for competent evaluation of teaching, were originally presented at the National Symposia for Professionals in Evaluation and Research (NSPER:82) conferences in Portland, Oregon; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and New Orleans, Louisiana. After an introduction by…

This School Improvement Model study examined the efficacy of three methods to improve administrator judgments of teacher performance: the preliminary perusal of teacher lesson plans, the use of lesson plan evaluation instruments, and the use of low inference (as opposed to high inference) lesson plan evaluation methods. Subjects included 529…

To assist school administrators, this handbook discusses types of supervision and evaluation and suggests ways to assess teacher performance. After a brief introductory section, the handbook's second section addresses five "fictions" about evaluation, including that evaluations must be "objective" and annual, require direct observation and…

An exploratory look at Taiwanese preschool children's compliant and noncompliant behaviors, how teachers responded to the behaviors, and the activity settings in which they occurred is offered in this paper. Observations were made in 10 different preschool centers in the city of Taipei; 5 were laboratory schools and 5 were private centers. A total…

A multitrait-multimethod design provided the basis for variable selection and analysis on the nature of cognitive impulsivity in natural classroom settings. Observational measures were developed for field dependence-independence, as well as for low- and high conceptual level to determine their ecological validity. They were designed to form an…

Behavioral observation has become increasingly important in research in developmental and clinical psychology, as well as in program evaluation and instructional research. Several statistical approaches to assessing the dependability of behavioral observation were reviewed. The demand for accurate and efficient paradigms for behavioral observation…