The development of case study training materials for an experimental research strategy is described, and the effects of such training are discussed. The theoretical foundation for learning strategies training was a social-cognitive/expectancy value model of college learning and teaching. In a posttest-only 2-group design, 54 students in an…

Drawing from experiences at Delaware Technical and Community College (DTCC), these papers discuss the institution's entrepreneurial approach to two aspects of college administration: developing relationships with business and industry, and management planning. Entrepreneurship is defined as the ability to find and evaluate opportunities, locate…

This handbook provides guidelines for instructors to follow in developing test items for occupational task lists. It begins with directions for task analysis: identifying major performance steps of a task, identifying supporting knowledge for each performance step, identifying supporting performance skills for each performance step, identifying…

The instructional validity of computer administered tests was studied with a focus on whether differences in test scores and item behavior are a function of instructional mode (computer versus non-computer). In the first of 3 studies, performance test scores for approximately 400 high school students in 1990-91 for tasks accomplished with the…

A study examined Maryland high school teachers' attitudes toward specific individual characteristics of the Maryland Writing Test as well as their overall attitudes toward the test. Subjects, 538 English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies teachers in Maryland's 176 public high schools, responded to a survey designed to elicit…

A study examined student responses to teacher comments on a student essay. First-year students at the Citadel, an all-male military school, imagined they wrote a paper on which a teacher had made 16 comments (eight positive and eight negative, eight having implied answers, eight having open-ended answers) and then rated those comments based on how…

The forms of parent involvement explored by researchers are varied, ranging from parents' encouragement of their children in the home to intense parent-school partnerships in which parents are involved in every aspect of the educational process. This paper summarizes selected studies of parent involvement which fall within the following three…

The study described in this paper involved 333 American students in Wisconsin and 375 Chinese students in Hong Kong in grades 8, 10, and 12. The study focused on 3 areas: (1) gender differences in perception of causal attributions of success or failure in school; (2) the relationship of gender to achievement goal orientation; and (3)…

This study examines teacher collaboration as an evolving service option for special needs students, and investigated the effects of teacher collaboration through the use of action research. The study compared student performance indicators in collaborative and noncollaborative structures and evaluated the validity of variables selected for…

This document, part of a series of papers which describe the assessment of student learning in various school curriculum areas from prekindergarten through grade 12, focuses on the assessment of student learning in fine arts education. After an overview of current curriculum goals in fine arts education, subsequent sections describe…

Employers and policymakers have traditionally sought to manage skill shortages in technical and other occupations through initiatives predicted in one of two broad definitions of skill: skill-as-input and skill-as-artifact. A weakness of both these perspectives is that focusing on the inputs and outcomes of a labor process obscures or ignores the…

This guidebook is designed to help teachers think about the important role of assessment in guiding students' narrative writing, with an emphasis on the close connections among curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The assessments that are given as examples stem from a long-term collaboration between the Center for Research on Evaluation,…

The role of social awareness in the employment success of adolescents with mild mental retardation was examined in a two-phase study. In phase 1, a set of social awareness descriptors designed to measure the three components of social awareness--sensitivity, insight, and communication--was developed and validated in a five-stage process. In phase…

This study examined the communicative competence of 89 international teaching assistants (ITAs) based on evaluations by undergraduate students. The study was developed to answer two questions: (1) whether the Oral English Proficiency Test, administered by professionals in teaching English as a second language, is a valid instrument for screening…

The essays in this collection are the products of work by more than 100 teachers in the Hudson Valley Portfolio Assessment Project. Teachers spent 3 years learning about, experimenting with, and reflecting on their uses of assessment and its relations to student achievement. In the opening three essays, Giselle Martin-Kniep discusses what she…