This paper investigates aspects of the management of independent secondary school libraries in England and Wales. It is based on a survey of 150 independent school library managers, with a response rate of 68.7 percent, which was carried out as part of an ongoing PhD research project. The paper considers a range of issues important to school…

This article describes Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (TRAILS), a freely available, online tool designed to measure the information literacy skills of high school students. It is based on information literacy competencies for ninth-graders found in the "Ohio Academic Content Standards" (Ohio Department of Education…

The literature on competency-based human resource (HR) management provides a strong case for moving from a jobs-based to a competency-based approach to human resources. There is agreement in the literature (Dubois, Rothwell, Stern, & Kemp, 2004; Lucia & Lepsinger, 1999) on the benefits of using competencies throughout HR systems and impact…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of balance and bilateral coordination to the fundamental locomotor pattern of skipping in 5- and 6-year old children. Subjects were kindergarten students (N=30) who were attending an elementary school in the suburban Kansas City area. The investigators used items from the…

Written for the Australian general reader who wants to understand important trends in vocational education and training, this document describes skills audits and provides an annotated list of publications for those who want more information. The first section defines skills audits as identification of the skills required and held by the work…

One novice subject's learning about the tennis serve was measured (over a 4-day period) by recording the subject's gestures and verbal remarks. This case study compared gestures, verbal remarks, skills, and form data to see which types best discriminated between days 1 to 4, and it also attempted to determine if discriminant analyses were suitable…

This paper is a commentary on three other papers presented at the 1983 American Educational Research Association Symposium on "The Trainability of Information Processing and Problem Solving Skills." The papers focus on certain aspects of the training of complex skills, such as reading, that can presumably be broken down into a variety of skills.…

A job evaluation system was designed and implemented by a college's personnel department using a "point dash factor" method for evaluating jobs. Employees made the major decision about which criteria should be used to rate job difficulty and how much weight each criterion should carry. Employee input was solicited through committees…

This chapter considers the professional status of instructional developers, the skills they need, and how those skills should be taught. Three differing approaches are discussed and critiqued: the specific skills approach; an approach which advocates the addition of "higher level" skills to the list of specific skills; and an "underlying skills"…

Developmental differences in summaries of expository texts were examined for fourth and sixth grade students in two experiments. Experiment 1 used texts that had a description content structure whereas Experiment 2 texts had a thesis/evidence content structure. Manipulation of the presence or absence of the topic sentence allowed the examination…

An increasing number of students in early childhood education are questioning critically the relationship of their professional training and academic background to the realities of their role as educators. This reflection has identified skills required for their work as educators for which they have not been adequately trained. To identify skills…

General Educational Development (GED) and Specific Vocational Preparation (SVP) levels are translated into yearly equivalents; variances are derived for the same occupation in different industries and for different occupations in the same industry. Requirement changes in the past decade are estimated and educational attainment is compared to…

The Job Characteristics Model proposed by Hackman and his associates postulates that positive personal and work outcomes are derived from five core job dimensions: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback from the job. The effects of the number of workers (work group size) and the number of tasks (task size) on…

Six hundred forty-seven competencies in reading and two hundred and four in mathematics are listed in descending order of importance. Elementary and secondary teachers and school staff personnel provided the rankings. (JD)