Maintains that the term "skills" has become too broad and vague to have any educational significance. Examples of obscure skills are presented, including skills of the historian, skills of relevance, skills for coping with innovation, and imagining skills. Educators should not use the term "skills" indiscriminately. (DB)

Evaluation is often both conceptually and functionally separate from program planning and operations management. There are a number of potentially beneficial side effects to be realized from close collaboration between program administrators and evaluators: when the evaluation task is broadly defined and when both administrators recognize their…

Examines three surveys of writing in Australian schools, based on the model used by the British Schools Council Project ("The Written Language of 11-18 Year Olds"). (RL)

A discussion of school psychology practice is presented, with emphasis on school programs rather than on individuals. The learning process as it occurs in school programing is discussed, illustrating potential sources of involvement for school psychologists in effecting change in education. School psychologists should be well suited to be…

The design of CAI for individualization of instruction and its relationship to broader educational systems is detailed. Effectiveness of CAI in various student populations and subject matter is presented, as well as design methods, and research studies in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence are reviewed. (RAO)

This informal report describes uses of single-user, personalized computer systems at the University of Michigan and discusses the implications of new technologies for improving access to higher education. (Author/MP)

Florida's accountability program, the result of the Florida Accountability Acts of 1968 and 1976, contains four parts: statewide assessment program, functional literacy testing, compensatory education program, and norm-referred testing, which are discussed in this article. (BB)

The year 1978 marked a downward trend in geoscience education. Lobbying for geoscience education should be encouraged. Among the year's developments were the publishing of textbooks on historical geology and geomorphology. (BB)

Based on a theoretical model of program development, this taxonomy of evaluation relates six evaluation objectives or purposes to nine methodological alternatives. Use of the taxonomy may increase the efficiency of evaluation, improve communication, and assist in the choice of a methodology that is appropriate to the evaluation purposes.…

This paper reports on the use of continuous assessment in a statistics course for social scientists, in which assignments are open-ended and use real data. It was found that those students who carry out the majority of the assignments score higher examination marks than do the rest. (Author/MN)

Oxford is examined as a center of influence, based on the assumption that Oxford's influence is a direct consequence of what is perceived as its excellence. The proportion of philosophy professors in British universities with Oxford degrees is determined and adopted as the method of measuring influence. (LBH)

Reviews the values and limitations of the use of the history of science in teaching science. (SL)

Examines six simplistic beliefs about curriculum and their implications for curriculum development and educational practice. Argues that simplistic notions of curriculum must be challenged, and extensive efforts must be made to develop a comprehensive concept of curriculum. (JG)

A cross-sectional examination of attitudinal differences between 160 seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students in an open education program and a nearly equal number of students in a traditional program, the study used the Attitude Toward School survey to assess the effect of open education as compared with the traditional program. (Author/NQ)

Fifteen common themes are presented, drawn from major studies into the reform of secondary education. (MJB)