Previous research using various measures of teacher quality has largely failed to investigate the relationships among such assessment measures using multivariate procedures. Multivariate investigations are essential in studies of teacher competence because these methods view various competency variables in the larger contexts to which researchers…

This study was undertaken to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of 8th, 9th, and 10th grade Kansas students pertaining to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Attitudes and knowledge of 9th and 10th grade students who had participated in a Sex Respect Class offered in the 9th grade were compared…

This report is one of a series on how curriculum unit experiences in U.S. history influenced the learning of fifth-grade students. This report focuses on the American Revolution period. Before the unit began, three classes of fifth graders stated what they knew (or thought they knew) about the events leading up to the Revolutionary War, the War…

This report describes the dieting practices of 796 Nebraskans in grades 8 and 10. The results presented in this report are based on questions from the 1989 National Adolescent Health Survey administered to a total of 1,689 adolescents. These topics are covered: (1) incidence of dieting in adolescent males and females; (2) methods used by dieters…

This report presents information from a survey of the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Nebraska adolescents (N=1,240) in grades 9-12 related to the Human-Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Schools were selected at random from each of the six classifications of Nebraska schools, and two or three…

The national survey reported in this document focused on 11th grade students' knowledge of literature and U.S. history. While approximately two-thirds of the history questions were answered correctly, performance on the literature assessment was slightly lower, perhaps because some questions were asked about authors and literary works not included…

The effects of mobilizing prior knowledge on information processing were studied. Two hypotheses, the cognitive set-point hypothesis and the selective attention hypothesis, try to account for the facilitation effects of prior knowledge activation. These hypotheses predict different recall patterns as a result of mobilizing prior knowledge. In…

A survey was conducted of 100 elementary and secondary teachers in northwestern Ohio concerning their knowledge of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Results indicated a lack of basic knowledge of AIDS among the majority of respondents, with a mean score of 14 out of 21 points (67 percent). Several of the most frequently missed questions…

This document presents the proceedings of a conference which brought together delegates and First Ladies representing western hemisphere nations to address needs and issues affecting people with disabilities in the Americas. It presents the texts of two keynote addresses: "Small Triumphs, Big Victories: A Global View of Persons with…

The assumption behind this paper is that teachers should adopt the strategy of simplification of a learning task by integration that captures the inherent tendency for the integration of the objective world into subjective wholes, rather than through simplification by isolation of topics. An effective way of establishing the theme of a course is…

The present study examines the influence of judges' item-related knowledge on setting standards for competency tests. Seventeen judges from different professions took a 122-item teacher-certification test in economics while setting competency standards for the test using the Angoff procedure. Judges tended to set higher standards for items they…

An obstacle in Natural Language understanding is the existence of lexical gaps, i.e. words or word senses that are not in the lexicon of the system. This thesis describes the implementation of MURRAY, a learning mechanism which infers the properties of a new lexical item from its syntactical environment and infers its meaning based on context and…

The strategic learning of college and university students begins with their acquisition of knowledge about their academic context and its learning opportunities and demands. However, traditional assessment measures isolate the student outside of the authentic learning context, which limits the information available from these tests. In contrast,…

This Spanish-language master's thesis presents a study which measured special education teachers' knowledge of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) virus transmission and their attitudes toward children with AIDS in schools. Attitudes were then related to social variables such as sex, teacher's age, and knowing someone with AIDS. A survey of…

Educators should be encouraged to develop elementary school students' knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the visual arts in an integrated approach to curriculum development in the schools. Instruction in the visual arts is frequently presented in isolation from other subjects, but resources are available to support reinforcement in…