All of the major academic quality rankings of American Ph.D.-granting geography departments during 1925-80 are examined, and trends in the universities and regions in which the best Ph.D.-granting geography departments have been located are analyzed. Seven major ratings of geography departments are considered. Reputational rankings were conducted…

This document is designed to assist school personnel in the planning, development, and implementation of vocational assessment approaches for special needs students. The intended audience includes administrators, coordinators, counsellors, or teachers who are interested in designing vocational assessment procedures which maximize the use of…

The scoring scheme of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is studied, as well as techniques for estimating its reliability. NAEP data are collected on students of age 13 in the fall, age 9 in the winter, and age 17 in the spring. The scoring task, involving hand scoring of open-ended items, may vary between 25,000 responses to…

Approaches to analyze the reform of higher education in Sweden, and particularly the organization of studies in higher education, are considered. Three starting points are as follows: examining the intentions constituting the background to the present organization of studies, considering continuing developments and attitudes toward problems; and…

This paper discusses the objectives for the writing programs for Department of Defense Office of Dependents Schools (DoDDS). Assessment results for 1978-79 writing samples of eighth and eleventh grade students are also presented, along with a summary of students' responses to questions about their writing habits. Test results reported in the paper…

The one parameter latent trait theory of Georg Rasch has two assumptions: that student abilities can be measured on an equal interval scale, and that the success of a student with a given item is a function of student achievement and item difficulty. The grade four Michigan Educational Assessment Program reading test was designed to measure…

This outline of the current status of foreign language education in Indiana was presented to a panel from the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies. Foreign language instruction at all levels is discussed with the support of statistics, and recommendations are made for mitigating deficiencies in existing programs.…

This document is a final report of the West Virginia School Health Development and Education Project and consists of the results of five discrete studies and a summary of objectives and outcomes, findings and recommendations. The five studies, conducted over a period of sixteen months in grades 7-12, were: (1) Health Class Offering Study; (2)…

Procedures for the development of the Second Assessment of Mathematics (1977-78) by the National Assessment of Educational Progress are outlined following an overview of the National Assessment effort and the first assessment of mathematics during the 1972-73 school year. The framework for organizing the mathematics objectives for the second…

A responsive educational evaluation is oriented more to program activities than to program intents, and stresses learning about the needs of the evaluation's audience, so that these value perspectives can be noted in reporting the successes and failures of the program. Most evaluation plans are more preordinate, emphasizing: (1) statements of…

The issue of minimal competency testing for high school graduation and grade to grade promotion as a method of emphasizing the teaching of basic skills and guaranteeing that the high school diploma will "mean something" has received widespread legislative attention in recent years. In this report, data pertaining to the enforcement of minimal…

As part of a statewide (Massachusetts) evaluation in all areas of education, the reading assessment summarized in this report tested all 9- and 17-year-old students in 31 school districts in an effort to examine student performance statewide as well as in the individual educational regions and communities. This report contains the following…

The purpose of the study is to review the official and unofficial U.S. Army policy toward graduate level education at civilian institutions. Particular attention is paid to: (1) the Army's advanced civilian schooling programs; (2) whether the Army receives a reasonable return on its financial and manpower expenditures on these programs; (3) what…

Students at the University Without Walls (UWW) of the University of Minnesota design their own program by writing a Long Term Degree Plan to describe how they plan to demonstrate their competence in each of UWW's seven graduation criteria. Because students have experienced difficulty in writing the plan, a seminar in process education was…

Reported are the highlights of a national survey of approximately 10,000 teachers, principals, superintendents, and state and local district supervisors in public, Catholic, and private schools throughout the country. The report includes a brief overview of the sample design, instrument development, data collection, file preparation, and analysis…