Many things stretch the bonds between caregiver and child, perhaps none more than war. Children's healthy illusions of their personal safety, well-being, and control of their environment is shattered. The resulting stresses cause varying levels and types of trauma, as well as varying mechanisms of coping. This paper explores the problems war…

The wars that began in 1991 in the countries of the former Yugoslavia caused widespread child suffering. This workshop report presents the findings from the Workshop on the Impact of War on Child Health held for doctors from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The workshop's goal was to address the common interest in the…

A case study was conducted to seek improved understanding of processes related to teachers' adoption of two classroom-based computer technologies--networked computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and desktop computer multimedia resources--at a selected magnet elementary school. A Stages of Concern Questionnaire was used to gather quantitative data,…

This paper reviews research on the assessment of parental empathy and considers data relevant to the relationship of parental empathy to other parental and family attributes. Three studies that relate parental empathy to the child's adjustment and personality characteristics, including empathy in the child, are then examined. The first study…

The first section of the update lists responses received to date to a survey of teacher portfolio use. Fourteen preservice and inservice teacher education programs and 12 kindergarten through grade 12 school districts responded with brief descriptions of their portfolio use and with contacts and addresses for further information. The second…

In the past decade, there have been ample interests in the assessment of cognitive and affective processes and products for the purposes of meaningful learning. Meaningful measurement (MM) has been proposed which is in accordance with a humanistic constructivist information-processing perspective. Students' responses to the assessment tasks are…

Performance assessment, constructed-response, and authentic assessment are topics of current interest in educational testing and reform. This workbook presents the following articles on educational assessment to highlight work being done in this area: (1) "Aquarium Problem and Teacher Guidelines: New Standards Project" (University of…

This study examines the question of students as context for what happens in school and the ways in which educators' subjective interpretations of the realities students bring with them to school influence every aspect of the school environment. The focus is on contemporary, nontraditional students whose academic backgrounds, families, values, or…

Stress factors affecting community college educators in Ontario were determined using a questionnaire survey. The effect of demographic variables (campus location, program types and specialization, gender, age, and years taught at the college) on perceived stress levels were evaluated. Participants rated their present stress levels on a…

The partial credit model of G. N. Masters (1982), a one-parameter unidimensional polychotomous Rasch model, was used to reduce the error of measurement, particularly for students near the cut score, and to permit measurement to reflect the actual ability of a student more accurately by reducing the degree of misfit for students near the cut…

In the spring of 1990, over 9,000 4th-, 8th- and 12th-grade students (only 6 percent of all students in Massachusetts) were assessed using open-ended mathematical, scientific, social studies, and reading concepts. Beginning with the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program for 1992, open-ended questions will be administered to all students and…

The purpose of this study is to find out from transfer students exactly what they are afraid of or nervous about when they start over in a new school and examines the implications these anxieties may have for teachers. During the transition, transfer students often suffer social, academic, and emotional distress which can impede their adjustment…

This study investigated the stresses confronting homeless adolescents and the coping strategies that enable stressed urban minority children to achieve in school. A total of 176 homeless children ranging in age from 9 to 14 years were interviewed, and 199 control subjects who were not homeless were surveyed. Academic achievement was determined…

This study was conducted to examine a restructured inner-city school and a second-grade teacher's personal and collaborative efforts to teach all of her students to become literate. To do so, she needed to adopt a feminist view recasting the teacher's role in school reform as that of an individual with knowledge who can act upon the world, rather…

Sponsored by the Curriculum Policies Committee, which advises the Alberta Minister of Education on matters relating to the curricula used in provincial schools, the study of school programs for Alberta natives (Metis, status and non-status Indians) was intended to discuss whether there should be special educational programs for these students. The…