A study of undergraduate medical students' abilities to identify salient information in reviewing patient charts was conducted at Southern Illinois University. Specific goals were to develop and test a method for assessing chart skills and to test several hypotheses that examine the effect of certain factors on chart review performance.…

The functional architecture of the verbal processing resource system was studied by testing aphasic patients in Canada and Boston for their abilities to use syntactic structure in sentence comprehension in isolation and under dual-task conditions. Results indicate that the processing resource system underlying syntactic processing is separate from…

Scores from the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale were compared to age and performance IQ for 72 children and adolescents with autism and 37 nonautistic controls with mental retardation. The relationship between the two groups' adaptive behavior profiles was stable from preschool age through adolescence. Increasing IQ was associated with lower…

Three systems of class ranking (grades, test scores, and clinical performance evaluations) are compared, using 124 residents graduated from medical school. All three systems showed modest correlations with performance in residency, but clinical performance measures were most predictive. Reliable and valid deans' letters of recommendation could be…

The constancy of intelligence quotients (IQs) of 161 gifted Israeli children, obtained initially in grades K-4 and retested 1-4 years later, was examined. Results indicated that 86% still qualified as gifted on the retest, with mean differences of five to eight IQ points. Performance scores tended to remain constant, whereas verbal scores tended…

Comparisons of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised scores, for 24 children with learning disabilities demonstrating a low verbal, high performance intelligence quotient (IQ) discrepancy and 33 slow learning children having uniformly low verbal and performance IQs, revealed few cognitive differences beyond the Performance Scale…

The theoretical background, organization, performance subtests (object assembly, geometric design, block design, mazes, picture completion, and animal pegs), verbal subtests (information, comprehension, arithmetic, vocabulary, similarities, and sentences), reliability, validity (factor analysis), interpretation, advantages, and limitations of the…

Teachers must learn to distinguish among performance assessments of different quality and appropriateness. Design criteria (cognitive complexity, linguistic appropriateness, content quality and coverage, and meaningfulness) are judged by examining assessment tasks and scoring rubrics. Effects criteria (transfer, generalizability, instructional…

Designed to improve equity, MMAP (the Middle School Math Through Applications Project) draws traditionally underserved students, such as minorities and girls, into higher mathematics. The plan features an assessment strategy based on what students are learning, definitions of quality work, student accountability, and encouragement of further…

This study compared 4 methods (2 case history and 2 performance-based) used to classify the status of adult subjects in familial studies of developmental language disorders, involving 24 parents of children with developmental language disorders and 24 unrelated adult controls. Classification by case history found fewer affected adults than…

Whether in the science or language laboratory, carrying out health care procedures or demonstrating performance arts, faculty can improve skill evaluation through transparency and authenticity in exam construction, format, and grading.

Background: Studies of school-aged children, adolescents, and adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have variably shown ADHD-related impairment in both inhibitory control and sustained attention. However, few studies have examined ADHD-associated patterns of performance on these tasks among younger children (below age 7…

This study examined the effects of concept mapping on the science achievement of middle grade science students. The subjects were 182 eighth-grade students, distributed into eight intact earth science classes by ability levels. The ability level variable also was examined as a possible effect on student achievement. Two teachers were involved in…

Measuring the extent of professional development in a large school system is complex. It's challenges to gauge training and its effects when schools choose different instructional reform models, and the task is more formidable when the models are chosen at different times and change. This study evaluates the effectiveness of Schools of Opportunity…

Contemporary assessment practices in science education have undergone significant changes in recent decades. The basis for these changes and the resulting new assessment practices are the subject of this two-part paper. Part 1 considers the basis of assessment that, more than 25 years ago, was driven by the assumptions of decomposability and…