Describes the classification of minorities developed by J. Ogbu as autonomous, voluntary (immigrant), and involuntary (nonimmigrant) and explains Ogbu's cultural ecological theory of minority school performance. Implications of the theory for pedagogy are explored. The typology of minority groups is regarded as a heuristic device for analysis.…

Defines a rubric as a set of scaled criteria, one of several methods recommended for student performance assessment. Topics include classification of performance; evaluating academic and social skills; advantages and disadvantages; types of rubrics; and rubrics for information literacy. (LRW)

Provides examples of current work in social science disciplines that address the policy research argument that understanding the impact of changes in human numbers on social and cultural life requires moving beyond current standards of empirical categories. Discusses enumeration categories suggested by the United Nations. (SLD)

Discusses knowledge management that seeks to minimize information overload in order to enhance performance. Highlights include the differences between data, information, and knowledge; the relationship between learning, knowledge, and performance; the use of focus groups; documenting results; and knowledge classification. (LRW)

Describes an interactive computer program that provides students with a means for learning classification concepts in the psychology classroom; if computers are not available, clip art can be utilized to study classification. Maintains that the program encourages students to see the importance of modifying any classification system as new data…

Provides and illustrates a method to compute the expected number of misclassifications of examinees using three-parameter item response theory and two state classifications (mastery or nonmastery). The method uses the standard error and the expected examinee ability distribution. (SLD)

Outlines a proposed classification system for 2-year institutions that is based on cluster analysis and could provide a framework for policy-relevant research. Public institutions, not-for-profit institutions, and private-for-profit institutions are further divided to yield a seven-category classification system. (SLD)

This article commences with an excerpt from a memo entitled "Problems in Assessment of LD Children," recently found when the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) relocated their offices. The letter was written by then junior staffer Lou Danielson to a university professor. Although Danielson's letter was written in 1977, 27…

Using the Decoding the Disciplines model, faculty who are deeply ingrained in their disciplinary research answer a series of questions to understand how students think and learn in their field. The cross-disciplinary nature of the process clarifies the thinking for each discipline. (Contains 1 figure.)

There has been an interest in the World Health Organization's framework of functioning and disability by those in communication disorders since the original 1980 International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps (ICIDH). In 2001, WHO published the substantially revised International Classification of Functioning, Disability,…

In a world increasingly characterised by change, diversity and complexity, with educational institutions, like others, aspiring to become "learning organisations" and where the "knowledge economy" is apparently crucial, schools as workplaces for learning appear to remain peculiarly static. The majority exhibit physical,…

Since 1999, Italian Universities have been monitoring teaching using students opinions to improve the quality of the education process. The acceleration of the evaluation has been promoted by ministerial laws, that have obliged Universities to write reports containing the main results. In this paper, the aim is to find a method to classify the…

Previous work indicates that semantic categorization decisions for nonexemplars (e.g., deciding that TURBAN is not an animal name) are faster for high-frequency words than low-frequency words. However, there is evidence that this result might depend on category size. When narrow categories are used (e.g., Months, Numbers), there is no frequency…

The Battig and Montague (1969) category norms have been an invaluable tool for researchers in many fields, with a recent literature search revealing their use in over 1600 projects published in more than 200 different journals. Since 1969, numerous changes have occurred culturally that warrant the collection of new normative data. For instance, in…

This paper proposes a multidimensional generalization of Coombs' (1964) parallelogram model for "pick any/'n'" data, which result from each of a number of subjects having selected a number of objects (s)he likes most from a prespecified set of "n" objects. In the model, persons and objects are represented in a low dimensional space defined by a…