This report is based upon the views and opinions of 2,670 students and 137 teachers in high schools and middle schools in four school districts in California. Quotes from students and teachers are used as illustrations, and as reminders of the human dimension to the schools' problems and successes. The report is divided into sections representing…

Perceptions of supervising and student teachers of certain supervisory behaviors were investigated. The Supervising Teacher Behavior Description Questionnaire (STBDQ) was developed to obtain data about perceptions of supervision as: pleasant/unpleasant, satisfying/dissatisfying, and motivating/nonmotivating. The STBDQ was correlated with the…

This report describes a Scottish Education Department study of induction (new staff orientation) policy and practice provided by colleges and of perceptions about the adequacy of such provision in the opinion of new staff, senior college staff, and regional officials. An introduction discusses the two-stage research design; this consists of case…

A test of job-specific literacy, called the McCoy Assessment of Worksite Literacy Abilities (MAWSLA), could not predict the job success of the 100 employees who took it. The 108-item test was based on literary tasks encountered by employees in the course of a routine day at McCoy Electronics Company, a 560-employee firm in Pennsylvania. The…

Employment tests predict job performance because they measure or are correlated with a large set of malleable developed abilities, which are causally related to productivity. Our economy currently under-rewards the achievements that are measured by these tests. Consequently, economic incentives to study hard in high school are minimal, and this…

The relationships among scores on the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) and the Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST) and scores achieved on objectively scored observation instruments were studied in 100 graduates of teacher preparation programs at Tennessee Technological University (Cookeville). Of these, 62 had completed the NTE and 27 had taken…

Information is presented on a study to explore similarities and differences among adults in their perceptions of attributes associated with exemplary instruction. Three purposes were to: determine how returning adults describe the instructors they find exemplary and compare these findings with the findings of previous research about younger…

A study was conducted at a rural community college to explore the process by which adult women who had returned to college decided whether to persist or drop out. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 women who had been identified as exceptional in that they either persisted and graduated even though they had been initially identified as…

The Music Curriculum Steering Committee of the Greater Albany (Oregon) Public School District 8J developed its own tests and evaluation procedures to accumulate data on music achievement and performance levels from students in third, fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades. Tests for third and fifth grade students focused on musical notation, listening…

This handbook provides a short, simple, non-academic, and practical guide on instruction in an on-the-job setting. It teaches job instructors the skills, knowledge, and techniques necessary to carry out job training in vocational and technical areas. Part 1 focuses on elements present in the job instruction setting that must be weighed to maximize…

Examined were relationships between metamemory and strategic behavior in 130 impulsive and reflective children in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Of these, 77 had been tested 3 years earlier on multiple metamemory and memory tasks. At pretraining, children were assessed on metamemory, cognitive tempo, summarization skills, and teacher ratings of…

Conclusions of major reviews of the literature on student ratings of college teachers are summarized for the period 1971 to September 1988. Several factor analytic studies have concluded that student ratings are multidimensional and that no single item will be useful for all purposes. Consistency, stability, and generalizability are aspects of…

The legitimate uses of new instruments for the selection and appraisal of principals, factors influencing use of these instruments, and safeguards to minimize misuse are discussed. Performance appraisal systems in education have been used legitimately to ensure that principals meet minimum performance standards, and for promotion. Another valuable…

A longitudinal study was conducted to: (1) describe characteristics of verbal interaction of children from 3 to 6 years of age with their mothers and preschool teachers; (2) analyze similarities and differences in conversational styles of mother-child and teacher-child dyads at the child's third, fourth, fifth, and sixth year; and (3) explore the…

To examine faculty development activities to improve teaching effectiveness, a midwestern college awarded grants to 17 faculty members for the purpose of revising existing courses and/or developing new courses. The faculty members had from 3 to 23 years of experience and represented all academic divisions. Student evaluations of a total of 27…