A proficiency examination developed for placing non-native English-speakers in appropriate expository writing courses is described. The instrument is a multiple-choice examination containing items that test specific expository writing skills through reading skills. The rationale for including such items for placement in expository writing courses,…

The January and August, 1986, issues of the Bulletin of English for Special Purposes in the Middle East and North Africa (ESPMENA) include articles on instructional topics, techniques, and materials; book reviews; and professional notices and reports. "Some Comments on the Science Content of ESP" (E. Arnold) looks at scientists' opinions…

Issues related to school instruction in students' heritage or ancestral language are discussed, particularly in regard to dialect-speaking children or children with some degree of competence in the language. The first chapter considers similarities and differences between second language instruction and heritage language education. The findings on…

Four writing samples were obtained from 638 foreign college applicants who represented three major foreign language groups (Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish), and from 60 native English speakers. All four were scored holistically, two were also scored for sentence-level and discourse-level skills, and some were scored by the Writer's Workbench…

After examining the decline in average scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) from 1963 to the present, it has been suggested that, although SAT scores continue to contribute to effective prediction of college grades, the test may have been overtaken by changes in high school programs that have made the test increasingly less related to the…

The purpose of this study was to compare the career maturity, self concept, and academic achievement of female students enrolled in intensive business training (IBT), cooperative vocational office training (CVOT), and regular business education programs. A sample of 240 students, equalized into three groups on the basis of IQ scores, were given…

A battery of work sample tests, the Micro-TOWER System of Vocational Evaluation, has been developed for use in vocational and career education programs. Verbal, numerical, and perceptual motor skills useful in various occupations are measured. The system has been field tested in vocational rehabilitation centers, prisons, schools, and psychiatric…

A study involving 513 developmental math students at eight Illinois community colleges was conducted to determine the correlation between student success or failure in developmental math courses and nine independent variables: (1) instructional method, i.e. "traditional," in which the instructor sets the pace for learning, and "nontraditional," in…

The data and computational procedures used by the IDEA System during the 1977-78 academic year at Kansas State University to interpret ratings of teacher performance are described in this technical report. The computations for each of the seven parts (evaluation, course description, students' self-ratings, methods, additional questions, diagnostic…

The data and computational procedures used by the IDEA System to generate IDEA Reports from information collected on the Standard Form of the IDEA Survey Form are described in this technical report. The computations for each of the seven parts of the IDEA Report are explained. The data base used for this 1978-79 Kansas State University study…

A STUDY WAS CONDUCTED TO ASSESS THE VARIABLES RELATED TO PUPIL MALADJUSTMENT AND TO DETERMINE WHETHER DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT WAS ACCORDED TO THE MALADJUSTED PUPILS ON THE BASIS OF THESE VARIABLES. THE POPULATION CONSISTED OF 2,866 PUPILS REFERRED TO WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK, SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS. DATA WERE OBTAINED FROM QUESTIONNAIRES…

This study proposed that the interaction of student personality and school environment is influential in the development of normative climates. Two instruments measured the transactional relationship between individual personal structure (needs) and characteristics of the organizational environment (press). Needs were measured by an Activities…

A pilot study was conducted to ascertain if creative abilities measures could be adapted to the upper elementary school level and maintain their factorial validity. The factorial validities of seven measures of productive thinking abilities at the upper elementary school level were tested across grade levels and different socio-economic…

This book contains a collection of principles, methods, and strategies useful in the planning, design, and evaluation of studies in education and the behavioral sciences. It is not a technical, detailed study, but an overview, a summary of alternatives, an exhibit of models, and a listing of strengths and weaknesses, useful as a checking and…

Comparison of free written compositions of 86 bilingual (Finnish-Swedish) and 86 monolingual (Swedish) third-, sixth-, and ninth-graders in a Finland Swedish comprehensive school revealed that bilinguals produced significantly more syntactic, vocabulary, and phraseology errors. Background variables correlating with errors included the student's…