This review of the literature on disabilities considers: (1) their effect on individuals, families, and society; (2) their causes; and (3) their prevention. Individual subsections address such aspects as defining disabilities; causes of disabilities at various stages of the life cycle; emotional, social, legal, and practical aspects of effects of…

In this study, the relationships between simple learning by accretion and various cognitive ability variables were explored. Computerized tests of five sources of individual differences were administered to a sample of 714 Air Force recruits, along with a trigram-English word paired-associate task, which was presented as a foreign language…

Alabama high school students (N=309) with mild mental retardation completed a questionnaire concerning their knowledge, attitudes, and sources of information about human immune deficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Students demonstrated some basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and expressed some concern about getting AIDS. They…

This study examined what psychology students know about clinical psychology as most students with declared majors in psychology state that they have career plans to work in applied psychology. A five-item questionnaire was administered to 162 undergraduates in three introductory and upper level psychology courses. The questionnaire asked students…

The construct validity of content standards is addressed in terms of their representative coverage of a construct domain and their alignment with the students' cognitive level of developing expertise in the subject matter. The construct validity of performance standards is addressed in terms of the extent to which they reflect increasing levels of…

The rate of sexual activity among adolescents has been rising steadily in the last 10 years, and adolescents are initiating sexual activity at younger ages. It has been widely assumed that parents can have an effect on their adolescent's sexual behavior and attitudes. This study was designed to investigate how parent-adolescent communication…

The goal of the Quality Improvement Program Plan (QUIPP) for Special Educators, developed by New York City Public Schools in New York, was to improve the quality of instruction for students with disabilities by expanding the knowledge and instructional abilities of special education professionals. The program, available in elementary and…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the second of these studies, focusing on standards for history. After the controversy surrounding the proposed "national history standards" in 1994, history has become a subject with no generally accepted national standards.…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the fifth of these studies, focusing on state standards for science. Thirty-six states presented standards for evaluation. Some states were in the process of revising standards, while others simply had no standards to present.…

When students use concept maps to construct and represent their understandings, these concept maps can be analyzed for representation of understanding from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. In this study, a qualitative approach was utilized to extend the interpretations from the quantitative analysis of students' conceptual…

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) could be a leading cause of death in American youth before the end of this century. Awareness is the starting point in preventing the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Infection from Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is absolutely preventable if people are aware of the potential for becoming infected and act…

Diagnosing cognitive errors possessed by examinees can be considered as a pattern classification problem that is designed to classify a sequential input of stimuli into one of several predetermined groups. The sequential inputs in this paper's context are item responses, and the predetermined groups are various states of knowledge resulting from…

Student modeling--the task of building dynamic models of student ability--is fraught with uncertainty, caused by such factors as multiple sources of student errors, careless errors and lucky guesses, learning and forgetting. Within the context of the Sherlock intelligent tutoring systems project, we have been experimenting with various ways of…

The 162 mathematics achievement tests cited in this bibliography are used to assess students' knowledge of various mathematical skills and operations. Many of the tests are part of large achievement batteries. Both norm reference and criterion referenced tests are included. The tests are primarily designed for preschool through grade 3. This…

In constructing a knowledge-based system, the knowledge engineer must convert rules of thumb provided by the domain expert and previously solved examples into a working system. Research in machine learning has produced algorithms that create rules for knowledge-based systems, but these algorithms require either many examples or a complete domain…