Kentucky high schools are attempting to address requirements of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). This study was conducted to collect and interpret data related to the implementation of high school restructuring and make recommendations. Thirty-three schools were invited to participate based on categories of restructuring,…

Educators are beginning to look at authentic assessment as a valid alternative to standardized tests and traditional objective tests. Although authentic assessment means different things to different people, it is understood to focus on whether or not students can use the skills and strategies they have learned and apply them in appropriate…

The relationship between selected contextual and socioeconomic variables and school-level results from a statewide performance-based student assessment system was studied using the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS). KIRIS uses portfolios of student work, scores from on-demand assessments, and student performance on…

Since the creation of the National Cooperative Educational Statistics System in 1988, states have joined with the National Center for Education Statistics to produce and maintain comparable and uniform education statistics. Through the National Forum on Education Statistics, states have met to develop and propose a set of basic data elements for…

This study examined the relationships among college students' perceptions of their personal (constructivist-based) learning environments, the extent to which they viewed selected teaching and learning activities as enhancing their personal learning, and their personal learning efficacy. A total of 2,190 students in 145 evening classes offered by…

This study compared African-American and white college students' perceptions of the educational environment within large lecture classes. A total of 124 African-American students and 1,143 white students in 27 classes with enrollments of more than 70 students completed surveys as part of a larger study on student perceptions of postsecondary…

As more academic institutions spend larger sums of money to network their campuses and provide network connections to sources outside their campuses, questions emerge concerning the selection and configuration of appropriate network technologies and the appropriate types and levels of services to provide. Increasingly, academic administrators are…

This booklet, which is intended for vocational educators/trainers in Australia, explains the principles and techniques of competency-based training (CBT). The following topics are discussed in the first 10 sections: the decision to adopt CBT in Australia; the meaning of competency; teaching and learning to become competent (competency standards as…

During the 1990s discipline-specific associations have attempted to reform education with a variety of visions and standards. Most of these efforts have been independent of one another with minimal cross-curricular input on one another's steering committees and working groups. In some cases there appears to be explicit collaboration between…

This study assessed the feedback-seeking behaviors of faculty in their third year of employment at five colleges and universities. A total of 121 faculty completed a mailed questionnaire on their feedback- and information-seeking behaviors, and a subset of 86 responded to interview questions about feedback. Statistical analyses of the survey and…

This study investigated the ability of six first graders with moderate to severe hearing impairment to recall a story using four reading presentation conditions: (1) group reading with interaction, (2) group reading without interaction, (3) individual reading with interaction, and (4) individual reading without interaction. Four books (one book…

Authentic assessment directly examines student performance on worthy intellectual tasks. The student determines the topic, the time allotted, the pacing, and the conditions under which the examples are generated. Authentic assessment is labor intensive, time-consuming, and expensive. Technology can provide the means for students to reflect on…

The conceptual focus of this study centers on a key aspect of improved schooling: the development of sophisticated thinkers in the K-12 sequence of education. The document is organized into four major sections. The first section describes how the theoretical bases of a thinking skills program are developed and rooted in the literature. In section…

The College Outcome Measures Program (COMP) and its role in an era when standardized testing is being questioned and authentic assessment is championed are discussed. Authentic assessment should not mean discarding measurement expertise and existing technology. It is an approach to measuring the quality and level of performance that uses real…

This paper reports the results of an SAT I field trial which examined test performance and efficiency of test timing for students with disabilities. A prototype SAT I test was administered to 1,113 students with disabilities in December 1992, in special formats and using special accommodations, to obtain information about the level of performance…