Alternative perspectives and practices for describing and documenting teaching practice and student learning relevant to classroom reform are identified, and a framework is provided for characterizing these process-focused instruments and indicators. Diverse descriptors were used to locate documents describing instruments and procedures used to…

A state educational indicator system being developed by the Pennsylvania Educational Policy Studies (PEPS) project at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) is described. The extensive database that has been established as part of the PEPS project includes thousands of variables that are descriptive of the 500 Pennsylvania school districts.…

This research plan describes a framework for defining and developing the field of rehabilitation sciences and research opportunities for the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR) and other agencies funding medical rehabilitation research. The plan addresses the needs of both persons who are involved in habilitation and in…

Many researchers are attempting to develop automated instructional development systems to guide subject matter experts through the lengthy and difficult process of courseware development. Because the targeted users often lack instructional design expertise, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to…

Literature on mastery learning (ML) is reviewed from the perspectives of past efforts, current approaches, and future directions. To date, approaches in managing the ML literature have been in four major areas: (1) the "typing" of ML efforts in the context of a comprehensive literature review; (2) the compilation of state-of-the-art bibliographies…

This handbook outlines procedures for evaluating a school guidance program. Defined first are the concept of guidance evaluation and basic terms in guidance evaluation. The purpose of guidance evaluation is discussed. Covered in a description of problems and difficulties in doing guidance evaluation are general problems; problems relating to…

The papers in this publication will help elementary and secondary educators integrate economic concepts and tools into consumer education courses. Responses to the papers are also included. There are eight chapters. Chapter one describes the project that is the subject of this publication and that resulted in the national seminar. The goal of the…

The emphasis in this study is on the development of a diagnostic measurement model for instruction. The content used was junior high science, but the content and subjects were used primarily as a means to an end. The model represents an attempt to incorporate Gagne's learning taxonomy into Tyler's model of the educational act. Focus is on the…

Learning-disabled students deficient in classification and categorization require specific instruction in these skills. Use of a classification/categorization instructional model improved the questioning strategies of 60 learning-disabled students, aged 10 to 12. The use of similar models is discussed as a basis for instruction in science, social…

This paper describes the theories and social factors that contributed to the development of competency-based training (CBT). These include behaviorism (Edward L. Thorndike), scientific management (Frederick Taylor), progressive education (John Dewey), and derivative theories including operant conditioning (B.F. Skinner), objectives-based…

Outlines a teaching approach for oral English for special purposes that inputs chunks of natural language orally. These "chunks" can be segmented by the learner into fixed and variable units, while simultaneously making the learner aware of the paradigmatic, syntagmatic, and phonological aspects of the language being taught. This…

This article describes a theoretical model of reading disability that integrates research findings in cognitive psychology, reading, and education. The model identifies four patterns of reading disability: (1) nonalphabetic readers, (2) compensatory readers, (3) nonautomatic readers, and (4) readers delayed in the acquisition of word recognition…

In the past several decades, individuals have been responding more actively to political and personal pressures to identify with a specific group that shares their background. For many people of mixed racial, ethnic, and cultural heritage, making such an identification is complicated. It is important for society to foster the positive development…

A comparison of several major learning taxonomies produced a three dimensional taxonomy of learner involvement on the mental, social, and physical dimensions. The six hierarchical levels of the mental dimension--recording, reacting, interpreting, analyzing, evaluating and applying, and synthesizing--indicate a synthesis of cognitive, affective,…

This paper describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of an automated system for predicting the acceptability status of candidate reading-comprehension stimuli extracted from a database of journal and magazine articles. The system uses a combination of classification and regression techniques to predict the probability that a given…