Offers an overview of NAEP, a project designed to compile data for assessing and improving American education. (DR) Aspect of National Assessment (NAEP) dealt with in this document: Program Description.

Although human knowledge has expanded rapidly, especially during the scientific era, man is far from the limits of knowledge about the human learning process itself. Greatly increased effort in this area of inquiry is required for survival. (JH)

Develops the "knowledge-as-status" perspective and its model to help describe what knowledge is and how knowledge changes over time. Concludes that knowledge in a particular field will progress or regress on the basis of reasons for and against the changes--reasons advanced and analyzed in a rhetorically epistemological way. (PD)

A study on the placement of handicapped children in New York City produced six conclusions, including that the city's Committee on the Handicapped scored well overall on a knowledge scale, but subgroups (except psychologists) indicated significantly lower knowledge of educational programing for handicapped children than a group of special…

Nonhandicapped preschool children (N=21) were interviewed about a variety of topics related to deafness and deaf people. Most of the preschoolers expressed at least minimal awareness of deafness. (Author)

Two classification schemes for social work knowledge are proposed. The first scheme is based on a definition of the profession's knowledge base. The second scheme is based on the concept that social work focuses on the interface between person and environment. (RC)

Cautions against underestimating children's intelligence and describes the development of the award winning book, "Building: The Fight against Gravity." (MKM)

Describes a study in which it was found that informational background has some effect on reading speed and comprehension. (TJ)

A survey of 235 older mothers (mean age 70) of adult offspring with mental retardation found low levels of service use despite knowledge of service availability. Service utilization was related to offspring age, gender, family income, amount of care provided by mothers, mothers' marital status, assistance from adult children without mental…

Four experiments involving 286 undergraduates examined social influences on metacognition, testing whether learner's knowledge that colearners have questions about the material affects their own levels of comprehension. Overall, the more questions colearners signaled having, the more confusion learners admitted having. (SLD)

A high school sophomore and a graduate student completed the Occu-U-Sort. Cognitive mapping with concurrent verbalizations showed how the task elicits different cognitive structures in novices and experts. Uses of the card sort for diagnosing career problems and prescribing interventions were identified. (SK)

British nursing students (78 of 93) completed a questionnaire about blood pressure; 90% were not familiar with Korotkoff sounds or auscultary gap; most thought blood pressure was the same in both arms; 63% knew resting was essential before measurement; 59% assessed the arm for cuff size; only 25% thought the cuff should be placed at heart level.…

Compares epistemological changes resulting from alphabetization in ancient Greece to similar changes in nursing education. Three dynamics are explored: sedimentation of words, growth of criticism, and the new rationality. Suggests that criticism is a positive change, the devaluing of sensory and experiential knowledge a negative change. Contains…

Examines one type of knowledge not included in the original Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, metacognitive knowledge. Based on the work of Flavell, this paper identifies three types of metacognitive knowledge (strategic knowledge, knowledge of cognitive tasks, and self-knowledge). After discussing each of these, the paper focuses on…