This study examines the role that community networks can take in fulfilling McQuail's call for a more democratic-participant form of mass media. Community networks, which are online grassroots organizations designed to promote local community initiatives, increased their Internet presence in the 1990s. However, their number has declined in recent…

M. J. Kolen, B. A. Hanson, and R. L. Brennan (1992) presented a procedure for assessing the conditional standard error of measurement (CSEM) of scale scores using a strong true-score model. They also investigated the ways of using nonlinear transformation from number-correct raw score to scale score to equalize the conditional standard error along…

This report contains 26 performance assessments for documenting student employability skills. Each performance assessment consists of the following: a competency; a terminal performance objective (outcome); competency builders and pupil performance objectives (criteria for documenting mastery of the objective); applied academic competencies;…

The possibility exists that some people might be at a disadvantage in registering their responses to a computerized test if mouse manipulation were complicated. This would be of particular concern if some groups were differentially affected by the complexity of manipulation. This study analyzed data from a pilot test conducted in 1991 for the…

This paper describes the development of an assessment method for elementary education students at North Central Bible College. The context in which performance assessment was introduced is discussed, and groundwork and planning of the assessment strategy, involving the education department as a whole, is described. The process of defining the…

This document contains a brief report describing the development of validated competency profiles for business, home economics, and industrial education at the University of Missouri-Columbia, as well as a set of the profiles. The profiles are used to evaluate students' levels of mastery of competencies in the content areas of each course. Two…

Society tends to look upon promising and highly able musicians as fortunate individuals, yet research has shown that musicians seldom are to be envied in terms of working conditions and the longtime results of their professional commitment. A majority amongst particularly orchestral musicians suffers from a wide variety of stress and…

This study explored the conditions under which learning goals might be more effective than performance goals in raising achievement outcomes. Following a pretest, 40 fourth-grade students received instruction and practice on fractions operations. Half of the students were provided with the goal of learning how to solve problems (learning goal);…

The purpose of this study is to examine multiple influences on twelfth-grade environmental knowledge for a national probability sample of high school students. A longitudinal model was developed and tested incorporating background factors (socioeconomic status and gender) and intervening variables (internal locus of control, level of science…

This study was conducted to develop a set of concepts regarding teachers' perspectives on accountability, to present exemplars and discussion of each concept, and to analyze implications of the concept for classroom practice. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 experienced elementary and high school teachers. Two pilot…

This paper explores the transition from school to young adulthood of youth with disabilities from the first wave (n=939) of the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS). Two popular sociological perspectives which explain the postschool success of youth with disabilities were examined: human capital in the form of education and training, and…

The purpose of this study was to gather further insight into a previous investigation of the relationship between self-chosen and program-controlled segment length of an interactive videodisk program, and performance on post- and retention tests. The initial study by Verhagen, which questioned what is the optimum length of well-designed…

The Texas Education Agency identified the need to implement an evaluation system of performance standards for selected vocational education programs as required by the Perkins Act. The project developed criteria to assess vocational education in secondary schools in Texas. Two objectives were met during 1990-91: conduct background research on…

Twelve people living at the O. D. Heck Developmental Center Autism Program participated in this study, along with nine people who provided facilitated communication (FC) support to them. The 12 individuals were selected because they were the most competent producers of FC in the program. The study involved showing pictures of everyday objects to…

Results from two studies are offered in this examination of differing perceptions of influential factors on gifted children's development. The first study surveyed parents, teachers, and gifted children in two southwestern states regarding their perception of the factors that have contributed to "giftedness." A 6-point Likert scale was…