This guide provides assessment models to those involved in planning and implementing workplace assessment and certification systems, including systems supported by the School-to-Work Opportunities Act. Chapter 2 presents the following: a kindergarten-through-career vision for cross-industry assessment; a plan for spanning the needs and goals of…

I use the introduction of a competitive fellowship program for graduate students to test whether men and women respond differently to competition and whether this response depends on the gender mix of the group. Men experienced a 10% increase in performance in response to the program, with the largest gains for men in departments with the most…

The history of SAT® score scales is summarized, and the need for realigning SAT score scales is demonstrated. The process employed to produce the conversions that take scores from the original SAT scales to recentered scales in which reference group scores are centered near the midpoint of the score-reporting range is laid out. For the purposes of…

The Data Quality Campaign is a national, collaborative effort to encourage and support state policymakers to improve the collection, availability and use of high-quality education data and to implement state longitudinal data systems to improve student achievement. The campaign aims to provide tools and resources that will assist state development…

Perception of teaching affects teaching practice. Process-product orientation presumes too much causal relationship between teaching and learning, and requires more teacher accountability than is realistic/necessary. Different conceptions of teaching facilitate inquiry into teaching excellence, with essential factors being teacher…

A course focusing on the avant-garde epoch and presenting an in-depth look at the arts of the period is described. Peer instruction, individualized instruction, experiential learning, and contracts were incorporated into a traditional lecture format. Student characteristics and attitudes were monitored. Course successes and problems are outlined.…

Determined: (1) if teachers who participated in "Science Teaching and Development of Reasoning" workshops felt they utilized workshop ideas in changing teaching style/methods; (2) if nature and extent of changes made were consistent with workshop intent/philosophy; and (3) factors teachers perceived as facilitating or hindering their…

Describes methods used in the nursing curriculum at the University of Iowa College of Nursing to evaluate inclusion of physical assessment skills and to test students' use of cognitive, perceptual, and psychomotor assessment skills in nursing diagnosis. Includes an example of motor and perceptual skill objectives for examining thorax and lungs.…

In order to examine the value of student evaluations of faculty, a survey of seniors regarding the quality of teaching they received in their four years of undergraduate college was undertaken. Topics include: the qualities of the best and worst teachers; preferred teaching methods; and faculty age, educational background, and department…

Questionnaire results from l04 psychologists serving the blind and partially sighted indicated disagreement on the tests used and on the evaluation of these tests. Tests of all kinds from 45 publishers were rated, and appropriate ages and populations (blind, partially-sighted) were suggested. (CP)

Describes a social work course incorporating ethnographic research methods, including seven course modules that cover sampling, data collection, data analysis, theory development, presentation of findings, and practical application within a clinical setting. Also presents student evaluations of course relevance and usefulness, and educational and…

This study examined the advantages of using written language portfolios for authentic assessment in a third-grade special education classroom. Portfolios included data from students, teachers, parents, and the teacher's journal. Portfolios provided insights about how students thought about their writing, offered new understandings of parents'…

This article examines what students report learning and how they received instruction over an eight-month period. Results indicated that students of teachers in the graduate program recalled more specific health content and participated in more interactive activities than did control teachers' students. (SM)

A study involving 1,097 elementary and secondary students who are deaf found that degree of hearing loss, additional disability, and age at onset were negatively related to psychosocial adjustment. However, there was a positive relationship with the use of hearing aids, speech intelligibility, academic achievement, parental hearing status, and…

Utilizes multiple regression analysis to examine the relative contributions of measures of musical aptitude, music experience, and gender in predicting grades in a music theory course for non-music majors. Results suggest that performance experience is the only statistically significant grade predictor for this group. (MJP)