Teachers at both college and pre-college levels have long realized that collaborative writing is an effective learning tool for beginning writers. Many have pointed out that collaboration in writing groups properly shifts the focus from the teacher to the student, and allows writers to take more responsibility for their own composing processes.…

The study evaluated the validity, reliability, and effectiveness in providing needed information of the Montana Functional Vision Assessment (MFVA) Instrument by comparing it with the Texas Education Agency Functional Vision Assessment and field testing the instrument in evaluations of nine multihandicapped students (ages 3-11). Evaluation led to…

Suggestions are offered to help disabled persons who need a communication system or computer to select the appropriate equipment. The importance of conducting a product evaluation during the process of selecting and adapting a computer is stressed. The role of various evaluation team members in performing product evaluations is described,…

Among the many reasons why college and university costs are rising are factors internal to the institutions which hold down productivity. Most efforts to improve productivity usually fail because they do not introduce new energy or information from the outside. In order to improve productivity, formal, non-quantitative evaluation should include a…

Monte Carlo simulation is a computer modeling procedure for mimicking observations on a random variable. A random number generator is used in generating the outcome for the events that are being modeled. The simulation can be used to obtain results that otherwise require extensive testing or complicated computations. This paper describes how Monte…

In this paper, academic efficiency is operationally defined and a methodology for measuring it at the school level is described. Academic efficiency is defined as the extent to which a school utilizes its time for the academic development of all its students. The measure of academic efficiency must include three elements: time, students, and…

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate that a systematic approach to the graphical analysis of Rasch model residuals can lead to an increased understanding of ordered response data, and that residual patterns do change in predictable ways, and that summary statistics need not be the only piece of evidence for assuring the fit between model…

This supplementary guide for use with K-2 Vietnamese-speaking students in Chicago public schools is keyed by page number to the standard social studies curriculum guides for these grades. The purpose of the activities in the guide, which are in Vietnamese, is to increase students' awareness and knowledge of the social environment in the United…

Varied aspects of Swedish Distance Education are described in this report, which is based primarily on an evaluation that analyzed student background, study problems, student use of and attitudes towards distance aids, study results, and the psychological consequences of distance education. Emphasis is on an investigation of distance education…

A reorganized version of standards to be utilized for those who are involved with educational evaluation in Brazil was the result of a critical review of evaluation standards which were originally elaborated by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. The conceptual framework for the critical review comprised logical…

Discussed are nine questions regarding standard setting issues in educational testing: (1) Should normative or content-referenced standards be used? (2) Different standard setting methods yield different results. Does this finding present a problem? (3) Assess the adequacy of the grounding of various methods of standard setting in psychological…

Even at an early age, children are guided by their intuitions as they write. Intuitions are the culmination of perceptions that have been internalized and synthesized into patterns. Furthermore, they take time to develop. Consequently, if systematic instruction is to play a part in the formation of intuitions about written language then it must…

Unlike less skilled writers, who are intensely writer-oriented, skilled writers of personal essays and autobiographies are reader-oriented and demonstrate a conscious concern for their external audience. Student writers can develop a sense of an external audience by analyzing parallel autobiographical text selections of skilled and unskilled…

An examination of audience analysis factors in representative communication textbooks indicates that current pedagogical applications are broadly categorized into demographic and dispositional properties. The adaptation of constructivist theory to audience analysis can give speech students reasons why the speaker-audience relationship is as it is.…

A study was designed to develop an empathy training program for health professionals that would (1) improve selected predictive, behavioral, and achieved empathetic communication skills for a sample group of registered nurses; (2) evaluate the effectiveness of the training program in attaining its stated goals; and (3) develop a program that could…