At Mozart Elementary School, a predominantly Latino pre-kindergarten through grade 8 Professional Development School in Chicago that is linked with Northeastern Illinois University, the upper grades have been transformed in a way that has proven beneficial to the students and the university's teacher candidates. Frustrated with their inability to…

The first of four issues in this volume consists of four review articles. "Tech Prep Quality" reviews a guide to total quality management and tech prep. "Specific, Ocean to Ocean" reviews a publication that identifies 10 preliminary plans for implementing tech prep. "...No Single Option" is about a monograph that evaluates tech prep and other…

This paper describes the development of a criterion-referenced, performance-based measure of third grade reading comprehension. The primary purpose of the assessment is to contribute unique and valid information for use in the formative evaluation of a whole literacy program. A secondary purpose is to supplement other program efforts to…

This paper reports on a study investigating the effects of studying alone or in cooperative-learning groups on the performance of high and low achievers. The effects of completing computer-based instruction using either learner or program control are also examined. A total of 92 sixth-grade students were classified by Stanford Achievement Scores…

The validity of assumptions that portfolios complement other assessment methods and yield more reliable and valid data than do traditional methods was studied. More specifically, focus was on examining whether: achievement level (characterized by scores, ranks, and group membership) varies significantly with differing definitions and usage of…

By the age of 4, children typically have separate schema for relating events in the physical world and for relating events to associated mental states. Generally, these schema cannot be coordinated until around 6 years of age, when the ability to use them together yields a structure for assigning intentionality. This intentional structure develops…

This bulletin summarizes the findings of a study that sought to determine what policies, regulations, and practices teachers believed posed the most significant constraints on their classroom activities; whether these constraints originated at the federal, state, local, or school level; and what effect the costraints had on quality instruction and…

An outline of remarks made at a National Seminar on Equity and Educational Testing and Assessment in March of 1993 is provided. Issues of equity in education and educational assessment are discussed in the context of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP is a national test in the sense that it monitors what is happening…

This manual offers practical guidelines, based on the work of K. P. Cross (1988) and T. A. Angelo (1991), on implementing a Classroom Assessment Training Project (CATP) at a high school or college. The manual contains information on planning, budgeting, training, and content. The Cross/Angelo Classroom Assessment Model relies on quick, anonymous…

At the root of the performance assessment movement is fairly widespread dissatisfaction with high-stakes multiple-choice tests. Many critics of multiple-choice tests argue that to improve instruction, tests themselves will have to improve. Hundreds of schools around the country are already experimenting with performance assessments, and many…

Seventeen studies that linked school characteristics and labor market performance were analyzed. Each met five criteria: labor market characteristics of students after they left high school were used as output measures, quality measures of schools were identified as inputs, reasonably sophisticated statistical procedures were used, "hard" measures…

This paper tested the hypothesis that certain cognitive, affective, and psychomotor variables were significant predictors of college persistence in the first few weeks of the freshman year. Data for the study involved 462 freshmen, with an average age of 18, who matriculated in the fall of 1997 at a public higher education institution; about 93…

This paper reports on research to study the benefit of a punctual self-directed learning experience with a hypermedia in the appropriation of a foreign language. Twenty-eight educational sciences students took a 55 item pretest on English notions. The students then engaged in a self-directed learning session using the CD-ROM, "L'anglais…

An assessment of the Student Perception of Teaching Effectiveness instrument (SPTE) is presented. The SPTE was developed to assess teaching interns' performance from the student's viewpoint. The Texas Teacher Appraisal System was selected as the content base for the development of the SPTE. The Texas system covers instructional strategies,…

At this conference on educational assessment, there was consensus among participants on the importance of the use of assessment to improve instruction, enhance the curriculum, and allow policy makers to measure achievement. There was less consensus about the best forms of assessment to use. The following conference papers are provided in this…