Describes a series of 12 books for use in high schools that cover aspects of women's lives in American society. The books are designed to counter the White male bias of the curriculum by exploring the history and culture of women. Field testing activities are described. (Author/RH)

The dominant profile judgment method, designed for use with profiles of polytomous scores on exercises in a performance-based assessment, is presented as a standard-setting method. The approach guides standard-setting panelists in articulating their standard-setting policies and allows for complex policy statements. (SLD)

This article describes efforts involved in an initial attempt to develop an objective instrument that assesses a teacher's perceived engagement in reflective practice. The Reflective Teaching Instrument was developed around three dimensions of reflective practice: diagnosis, testing, and personal causation. (IAH)

Describes research and evaluation on the Information Mapping method of structured analysis and writing of training and reference documents to illustrate how a flaw in research design can cause "little or no effect" results. Information retrieval experiments, learning experiments, and field tests are examined for problems, including size…

Discusses the portability of a Canadian-made educational simulation software package, "The Electronics Workbench," to China that was part of a larger study conducted at the University of Twente (The Netherlands). Evaluation results of the software use in China are presented, including functionality for electronics education, ease of use,…

The results of field-testing a substance-abuse treatment protocol are reported. Ten probation and parole officers were trained in Structured Relapse Prevention, and 55 clients were treated. Incentives and barriers to treatment are highlighted. The use of this type of field test as a dissemination technique is discussed. (EMK)

Research on teacher-child relationships, classroom environments, and teaching practices provided the rationale for constructing a system for observing and assessing emotional and instructional elements of quality in early childhood educational environments: the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). The CLASS provides a framework for…

In 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Early Learning Initiative (ELI) to improve the school readiness of Washington State's children through three main strategies: (1) development of high-quality, community-wide early learning initiatives in two communities; (2) enhancement of statewide systems that support early…

NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) has developed its first set of assessment tasks for measuring student achievement in theatre. These tasks draw on a wide range of dramatic forms and use both paper-and-pencil and performance tasks. Sections in this serial issue include: "The Importance of Theatre"; "The Theatre…

The last decade has seen the emergence in the policy arena of a new form of qualitative research, one intended to strenghten its ability to generalize while preserving in-depth description. These multisite qualitative studies address the same research question using similar data collection and analysis procedures in a number of settings. To gain…

The goal of this project was to develop an inexpensive, self-contained system of hardware and software to support the development, administration, and evaluation of computerized adaptive tests. Toward that goal, commercial hardware was selected and a comprehensive software called the MicroCAT Testing System was developed. The MicroCAT system was…

This report documents the proceedings of a workshop designed to provide training experience for the participants in the development, distribution, and utilization of neo-literate materials relevant to the needs of rural peoples in the countries of Asia and the Pacific region. A summary of the activities and presentations made at the workshop is…

Problems connected with school dropouts and illiteracy are discussed. The need for decreasing recidivism and prison populations through educational programs is presented, with data on the costs of not doing so. The use of television as a teaching resource is proposed as a possible solution. A field test was conducted to determine the effects of a…

This report summarizes the activities of the first year of a 2-year Lilly Endowment, Inc. sponsored project, which funded nine Indiana school corporations to select and field test current microcomputer software, and presents 53 critical software evaluations based on information gathered from teachers and students. Information provided by the…

This evaluation report focuses on a broad range of issues associated with the work of the Electronic Text Consortium (consisting of San Diego State University, University of Wisconsin, University of Nebraska, and WGBH Boston), whose year-long task was to develop and test a variety of electronic text services and to assess which configurations of…