Some issues involved in the measurement of student motivation and learning strategies are explored, focusing on a self-report instrument, the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). The MSLQ, designed to assess the motivational orientation and learning strategy use of college students and based on a social-cognitive view, has been…

This volume is intended as a guide to managers of U.S. Department of Education programs and their staffs to help them in their efforts to design reasonably valid, reliable, and useful outcome monitoring procedures. It provides recommendations for development of an outcome measurement process for individual educational programs. These suggestions…

Studies suggest that the traditional technique of one-way lectures used most often by teachers results in about 42% retention after class, and 17% a week later. To improve both student learning and institutional effectiveness, colleges should support faculty development programs that expose teachers to two-way teaching and learning processes.…

The experience of an elementary school implementing the Touchstones Program--an approach to assessment within the proposed National Curriculum (NC) in England--is described, after which teacher reaction to the NC and fundamental beliefs about the nature of education are considered. The Touchstones assessment consist of 10 cross-curricular group…

A model and supportive materials are presented for design and implementation of a program for involving citizens in decision-making concerning significant environmental issues. Chapter topics include: why citizen involvement? (potential benefits of the process); theoretical basis for citizen involvement (three fundamental perspectives underlying…

This report describes and evaluates The World Is Your Museum Program -- its objectives and information from an Interim Evaluation Report -- and provides other evaluative information from teachers, students, and the project director. The program involved 300 students from eight public and two non-public elementary (K-5) art classes in Washington,…

This report describes a six-week, in-service training program for family day care mothers consisting of three components: (1) weekly small group meetings of the mothers to share ideas about child care and to learn about child development and various home activities for children; (2) home visitations (informal discussions between the mother and a…

The description of achievement levels is important to the process of reporting student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A process was designed to develop achievement level descriptions (ALDs) for writing and civics. To begin, focus groups were conducted in each of the four NAEP regions for both writing and…

Describes a pilot project at the Colorado State University library that provided reserve materials electronically through microcomputers via a campus computer network at no cost to students. Topics discussed include programming; user-friendly menus for software; results of students' and professors' evaluations; copyright issues; and possible…

A model is presented for including student outcome measures on teacher evaluation systems when there are needs for both formative and summative evaluation data. The experiences of Kentucky and Georgia provided bases for the development of the dual purpose assessment model. Pilot tests in Kentucky and Georgia were specific to the top-down…

This paper represents the first phase of a pilot project designed to evaluate the effectiveness of training and utilizing licensed home day care providers as subsequent trainers of potential or inexperienced day care providers. The initial training of the licensed providers was conducted by professional personnel. Pretest and posttest data were…

The Commission for Teacher Preparation and Licensing of the State of California has for the past three years been operating an External Assessment Pilot Project. Community and professional constituents of teacher education programs review those programs to determine whether or not they conform to earlier program plans submitted to the commission…

The primary goal of the project described in this monograph was to develop a competency-based training program for the preparation of school-community council members. A secondary goal was that this training program be generalizable to other educational institutions and agencies that utilize advisory councils. Interviews with 16 school staff and…

During its three-year pilot period, Title V of the Rural Development Act of 1972 demonstrated its potential as part of a broad national rural strategy and should be carefully expanded with special attention to funding, organization, and evaluation policies. Initial funding at $20 million yearly would provide each state with $100,000 (an amount…

This manual outlines the process for evaluating a series of instructional materials for college-based training of the Child Development Associate (CDA) in Texas. Chapter I offers a discussion of the need for child care worker training in Texas and provides background information on the development of both the national and the Texas CDA pilot…