This final report describes activities and accomplishments of a 2-year federal project to provide support services for deaf-blind children and youth in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Objectives and their accomplishments are divided into two major sections: activities of the New England Center (NEC) for Deaf-Blind Services…

Much information is available to help users locate and evaluate career assessment instruments. This digest can help improve their evaluations. For the purpose of both locating and evaluating career assessment instruments there are three primary sources. Best known among these are the Buros Institute's publication "Tests in Print" and its…

This report deals with the question of obtaining insights into states of prior knowledge and exploring knowledge state tests and knowledge state profiles. The first part introduces a few basic terms important in the context of prior knowledge state. Evaluation and the validity, reliability, and usefulness of tests are considered in a prior…

A goals-based assessment program consistent with constructivist principles that is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the beginning teacher is described, and a prototype is presented that can be used in related settings. The constructivist view of learning sees the learner as actively involved in the construction of his or her own…

The "Discipline That Doesn't Hurt!" parent education curriculum has been taught by approximately 100 trained volunteers to nearly 3,000 parents over the past 4 years. Three different evaluation forms have been created and used, yet none of these instruments have shown whether parents who have completed the series are better able to analyze the…

This study examined the attitudes of elementary school teachers and students toward portfolio assessment. A total of 11 teachers and 116 students in grades 3 through 5 responded to open-ended questions regarding the benefits of portfolios for highlighting students' written work. Teachers were asked about the strengths and weaknesses of portfolio…

This review of research and literature examines issues related to the identification of potentially gifted students from groups most likely to be underrepresented in gifted education programs, including racial and ethnic minority groups, economically disadvantaged students, and those with limited English proficiency. Three major reasons for…

In preparation for an accreditation visit, New Mexico State University at Carlsbad (NMSU-C) developed plans and strategies for measuring student academic achievement. One of the first tasks completed was the development of a standardized syllabus format. The format includes course information, such as the title, number, name of instructor,…

Establishing and refining a framework for performance assessment is especially difficult in large-scale settings that can involve hundreds of judges and thousands of students. This presentation advocates the interactive use of two complementary analytic perspectives and illustrates the approach in the context of the College Entrance Examination…

Whether the aim has been to understand the nature of creativity or to determine its development, researchers have formulated a number of measures of creativity. A glut of results and conclusions actually hinders an educational understanding of the term creativity. The most widely known tests of creativity incorporate divergent-thinking, as opposed…

The District of Columbia public schools sought to obtain an index of "customer satisfaction" from its parents through a study designed to examine their perceptions of their children's schools and school experiences. A survey was developed and pilot tested to ensure content validity and reliability. The survey focused on five areas: (1)…

This fourth edition of "Education at a Glance" presents a set of 43 educational indicators covering the 1993-94 school year in the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These indicators provide regularly updated information on the organization and operation of education systems. Following…

High-stakes assessments are those in which the results of tests or other measures can lead to decisions that may affect school administrators, teachers, and students substantially. Whether high-stakes assessment results in misleading information due to extraneous factors associated with the conditions under which the assessment occurs is explored.…

This curricular framework is designed to assist administrators and teachers in planning, developing, and implementing family and consumer sciences programs in Maryland. It provides a philosophical foundation and a broad outline from which educators may construct comprehensive family and consumer sciences programs. The materials will aid local…

Adding new chapters on emergent literacy, special needs children, and technology in the reading/writing classroom, the second edition of this book emphasizes that teaching children how to read and write is not enough--teachers must create an environment that invites children to want to read and write for real, communicative purposes. Chapters in…