School-based health clinics, adolescent pregnancy prevention programs offering comprehensive health services, represent the latest initiative to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University designed and administered a pregnancy prevention program which offered sexuality education and family planning services…

Characteristics that distinguish criterion-referenced tests from their norm-referenced counterparts are discussed, including: the purposes that they are designed to serve; the characteristics of the types of items that they contain; and the manner in which they are developed. More specifically, the distinguishing characteristics include: reference…

This study examined transitional knowledge during literacy development, hypothesizing that there are times when the integration of reading and writing knowledges into literacy knowledges is problematic for children because these knowledges are out of synch with one another. Data were gathered from 46 kindergarten pupils, each of whom wrote and…

To determine whether reading and writing are as closely related as commonly supposed, a study estimated the amount of overlap that exists between several components of reading and writing knowledge. Data were obtained from 256 second graders and 251 fifth graders. Reading measures included tests of phonics (word knowledge), vocabulary (lexical…

Research and descriptive studies of the active reader (one who starts reading early in life with a broad range of interests and continues this behavior) are of particular interest, because they identify salient characteristics and acquired traits of people who like to read. For example, the mature reader has been characterized as being able to…

A study was conducted by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges to assess student knowledge in the liberal arts in four large urban community college districts (i.e., Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and St. Louis). The study used both a student characteristics survey and the General Academic Assessment (GAA), a content test designed to…

A study investigated the idea that the amount of knowledge viewers extract from exposure to television is a function of the amount of mental effort involved in processing the program content, and that the mental effort invested in viewing is partly a function of people's expectations about the demand characteristics associated with the content.…

Four major problem areas inhibit the standardized assessment of critical thinking (CT): (1) content validity; (2) construct validity; (3) technical jargon; and (4) background knowledge. Practical examples of framing multiple-choice items for assessment are suggested. In the area of content validity, new agreement about the definition of CT now…

The report details information on a study of effective inservice programs in the area of learning disabilities (LD) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Section 1 describes the content of the 28 Learning Centre inservice programs which were attended by 739 educators. Compilation of participant evaluations revealed a diverse list of recommendations for…

A "tacit" dimension of knowledge is being studied within the Swedish Research on Higher Education Program. This tacit dimension includes the practitioner's capacities for applying knowledge in practice, taking a personal stance, having a sense of history, and dealing with personal and moral problems. This kind of knowledge is assumedly unnoticed…

This study sought to determine the cognitive levels of questioning of end-of-chapter test items accompanying selected fifth-grade science textbooks. The extent to which test items emphasized high level questioning and significant differences among texts in the distribution of knowledge and above-knowledge-level test items were also investigated.…

This report presents a profile of students at Utah State University who are considering becoming secondary school teachers. Data were obtained from two questionnaires: one administered upon the student's entry to the first required course in the secondary education program and the other when the student exited from the course. A summary is given…

The purpose of this study was to compare the performances of undergraduates on a knowledge test of reading (before and after student teaching) with the amount of effort committed to reading instruction by their respective supervisory teachers. The Artley-Hardin "Inventory of Teacher Knowledge of Reading" was administered to three classes of senior…

The geographic knowledge, skills, and understandings of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders can be assessed through this test which was developed by the National Council for Geographic Education. The test consists of 27 questions on geography skills, 25 questions on physical geography, and 23 questions on human geography. Students are directed to…

Students' understandings of the concept of social class before and after taking the Social Science Foundation course (D101) at Great Britain's Open University were investigated in 1980. Among the students' conceptions before the course was that people are middle class or working class according to their job. Other conceptions were that social…