A manual for assessing the effectiveness of an elementary school , taking differences in the school's resources into account, is presented. The Pennsylvania State Board of Education established the Bureau of Educational Quality Assessment which developed a measurement package in Phase I. Field tests were conducted on grade 5 students in 1968 in…

The problem of what set of instructional materials and equipment and entire instructional systems to use is presented, with specific reference to the area of Correctional Adult Basic Education (ABE). In setting up an ABE program, the initial order of business is to construct a viable model, one that insures that rapid and significant learning will…

The construction of a taxonomy of behavioral objectives for the years three, four, and five was the original intent of the project reported. A further intent was that the taxonomy should distinguish what were reasonable objectives for children of differing socioeconomic (SES) levels and ethnic backgrounds, with particular reference to the…

This news letter summarizes language research in composition, writing skills, and linguistic usage carried out over a three year period (Grades 4, 5, 6) with a sample of Swedish students. Subjective assessment of student compositions was carried out. The marks from these assessments will serve as criteria in evaluating various objective measures.…

A two group-two treatment research design is presented; it allows for the assessment of the individual and the combined effects of the two treatments. Advantages include: (1) Initial evaluation represents an estimate of the stabilities of the measurements; and (2) Observation 4 compared with the average of Observation 1 and Observation 2 tests the…

The first two years of "Sesame Street" were evaluated as to their effectiveness as compensatory education. The evaluation assessed progress along some 36 primary goals of the show, as well as transfer effects, home background variables, parental attitudes, and socioeconomic status factors. Over 1,300 preschool children were tested, and…

Minority and majority groups were administered a special quantitative section of the Admission Test for Graduate Study in Business (ATGSB) under varying time conditions to determine if increasing the time allotted for the test would eliminate any bias which may exist due to an irrelevant speed factor. By a commonly employed definition the special…

To provide substantive and methodological information concerning systematic vocational placement and followup to individuals responsible for educational program change, a project was conducted to develop three publications, each for different audiences: (1) school board members, (2) teacher educators, and (3) local school personnel. Information…

A copying test (VAT) is described in which the test items can function as teaching objectives with the expectation that acquiring competency in the represented behaviors will be generalized to other visual-motor tasks. Six hundred and sixty-seven kindergarten first- and second-grade children were tested. Results show: (1) a reliable scoring method…

This report describes the methods and results of a 29-month project to make available to Kentucky's school children the best and most recent programs and techniques in innovative teaching through an improvement of curriculum management. The project identified and examined eight management areas and provided consultative service to local district…

The Conference sought to provide a user-based and -oriented assessment of performance contracting for education. It focused on delineating the current interest in performance contracting, the technique's demonstrated strengths and weaknesses, and its potential as an alternative approach to school system resource allocation. Six commissioned papers…

This is the final report on evaluation and research of the Flexible Learning System (FLS). The Flexible Learning System (FLS) began as an outgrowth of the Far West Laboratory's several years of investment in research and development of a Responsive Model of Early Childhood Education for young children. The model emphasizes the development of…

This document reports efforts to address some of the problems of competency-based assessment by developing and utilizing unique measures of competence. Seven conceptual guidelines are identified for test development and utilization: (1) new competencies must be identified and operationally defined; (2) new competencies should have general…

Part one of the Northeast Conference Reports for 1975 deals with the background of the three major components discussed in the reports: curriculum, teaching styles and strategies, and evaluation techniques in foreign language instruction. In the section on curriculum, the role of foreign languages in the curriculum is examined. A historical…

Federal assistance for special educational programs makes necessary the regular study of evaluations of thousands of innovations in compensatory education, bilingual education, and reading programs. The results are reported to the President and to Congress. However, investigating organizations find only a few programs with adequate evidence and…