This article describes a project to help educators improve the self-determination of students with disabilities. The project identified critical curricular components and developed a checklist to evaluate the different curricula designed to promote self-determination skills. Five curricula that have published research documenting their…

In choosing language testing alternatives appropriate for their language education contexts, language teachers need to keep in mind the purposeful nature of language assessment. Purposeful language assessment involves focusing what is to be accomplished by language assessment, specifying intended uses of language tests, selecting appropriate…

Compared five item selection rules with respect to the efficiency and precision of trait (theta) estimation at the early stages of computerized adaptive testing (CAT). The Fisher interval information, Fisher information with a posterior distribution, Kullback-Leibler information, and Kullback-Leibler information with a posterior distribution…

Presents brief descriptions of the eight books for young adults on the 1999 Honor List annually compiled the authors. Offers descriptions of the eight books. (SR)

Discusses multimedia Web site design that may include images, animations, audio, and video. Highlights include interfaces that stress user-centered design; using only relevant media; placing high-demand content on secondary pages and keeping the home page simpler; providing information about the media; considering users with disabilities; and user…

Discusses selection and planning of group activities based on stages of group development. Describes typical group processes and behaviors encountered at the beginning, middle, and end of an extended group experience. Outlines two beginning, two middle, and one ending activity, including basic parameters and brief instructions. (SV)

Discusses five books that deal with selecting and sharing books with children, books which are useful to parents, teachers, media specialists, and librarians. Addresses: nonfiction, young adult literature, using folktales with young adults, choosing books for children, selecting books for elementary school libraries, and choosing books for…

Examined the lack of participation in humanities courses of Asian Australian students relative to other ethnic groups and studied the difficulties Asian Australian students faced in humanities courses. Focus group interviews and questionnaires completed by 173 students suggested that students from different ethnic groups differed in their reasons…

Argues for the use of literature about characters with disabilities in introductory education/special education courses. Provides a 91-item list of such works. (RS)

Describes the development of evaluation within the United States and traces the connections between evaluation and the documents that founded the United States. Analyzes the demands placed on evaluation by modern democracies and comments on the importance of the selection of evaluation indicators and the necessity of systematic evaluation. (SLD)

Provides an evaluation template for student activities professionals charged with evaluating competitive event scheduling software. Guides staff in making an informed decision on whether to retain event management technology provided through an existing vendor or choose "best-of-breed" scheduling software. (EV)

Describes the Dutch rating system for test quality, which evaluates a test for seven criteria, and analyses the results of test ratings from the past 18 years. Results show a steady increase in test quality in the Netherlands that can be attributed to use of better tests and declining use of tests of less quality after evaluation. (SLD)

Describes the 1997 revision of the Dutch Rating System for Test Quality used by a committee of the Dutch Association of Psychologists. The rating system evaluates test quality on seven criteria using a checklist for each criterion. Comment sections provide additional information, and weighting rules establish the final grades. (SLD)

Presents resources for finding young adult (YA) reading material. Lists and describes 19 websites and mentions several print resources. Annotates 11 new or overlooked YA books worth reading. (SG)

Presents 13 works of nonfiction (published between 1993 and 2001) with strong appeal to middle level students. Notes that the books range in form from the essay to expository text to memoir and biography and cover everything from politics to slavery, from athletes to art. (SG)