In the face of extreme poverty and inequality in South Africa, community mobilization interventions represent an important way in which people can be empowered to improve their life. Successfully conducting community mobilization interventions in rural South African communities requires anticipating and addressing a number of potential barriers in…

This article enquires into the role of gender in the use of different forms of aggression and in the appearance of conflicts within the interactions between students of 12-17 years of age. In order to understand both aspects, the conversational fragments of students and teachers from two high schools are expounded; discourses obtained using a…

To examine the utility of a self-report scale of sexual assault trauma, 223 female victims were interviewed with the 43-item Sexual Assault Symptom Scale II (SASS II) at 1, 3, 7, 11, and 15 months postassault. Factor analyses using principal-components extraction with an oblimin rotation yielded 7 common factors with 31 items. The internal…

Early identification of problem readers and appropriate interventions would reduce subsequent failure and would enhance reading skills. Screening instruments measure the risk/probability that reading problems will occur. In this article we discuss certain aspects with regard to the most important indices of screening measures: predictive accuracy,…

E-rater[R] has been used by the Educational Testing Service for automated essay scoring since 1999. This paper describes a new version of e-rater (V.2) that is different from other automated essay scoring systems in several important respects. The main innovations of e-rater V.2 are a small, intuitive, and meaningful set of features used for…

In the Peltier, Hay, and Drago (2005) article titled "The Reflective Learning Continuum: Reflecting on Reflection," a reflective learning continuum was conceptualized and tested. This is a follow-up article based on three extensions: (1) determining whether the continuum could be expanded, (2) further validating the continuum using…

The Chinese Language Classroom Environment Inventory (CLCEI) is a bilingual instrument developed for use in measuring students' and teachers' perceptions toward their Chinese Language classroom learning environments in Singapore secondary schools. The English version of the CLCEI was customised from the English version of the "What is…

Widely viewed today by many taxpayers, business leaders, and elected officials as inefficient, ineffective, bureaucratic, public education is losing its once-noble brand position as the cornerstone of American democracy. According to Laura Ries, a marketing guru, the first problem is the name, it is called public education. It is because the…

Recently, many insights have been gained into how to create powerful learning environments. The goal of learning how to teach in this way has important consequences for teacher training. Firstly, scholars indicate the necessity to work out a theoretical framework for the student-teachers which is sufficiently complete, but still manageable, and…

Consumer acceptance or rejection of biotechnology is often shaped by information prepared by communicators with varying levels of scientific knowledge, awareness, and acceptance. This study compared the prior, post-workshop, and sustained (1 year) biotechnology awareness, acceptance, and attitudes of professionals who communicate biotechnology to…

This book provides basic skills and knowledge about assessment so that teachers can expand their ability to deal with appraisal problems in their own settings. The first section deals with the basic principles of assessment. The second section concerns creating and applying assessment tools. The third section reviews issues in understanding and…

The nine-volume Survey Kit is designed to help readers prepare and conduct surveys and become better users of survey results. All the books in the series contain instructional objectives, exercises and answers, examples of surveys in use, illustrations of survey questions, guidelines for action, checklists of "dos and don'ts," and…

Standards-based assessment, or at least the concept of standards-based assessment, will provide a key strategy for the implementation of the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework. This paper considers the meaning of standards-based assessment and its role in New Zealand's assessment for nationally recognized qualifications. Standards-based…

This study investigated a number of questions regarding the nature of social concept development in young children. Subjects were 64 kindergarten children and 65 first grade public school students from lower to upper middle class socioeconomic levels, of whom 66 were male, 63 were female, 78 were Caucasian, and 51 were black. Two assessment…

The measurement of change is such a broad topic that this article must limit its focus to a few specific subtopics. These specific topics include: longitudinal research design, attrition in research studies, the statistical analysis of difference scores, and the comparison of analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multivariate analysis of variance…