ERIC Number: ED087191
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1973-Dec
Pages: 51
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Me and My Environment Formative Evaluation Report 2. Assessing Student Abilities and Performance: Year 1.
Steele, Joe M.
Presented is the second in a series of formative evaluation reports which summarizes student abilities and performance in field tests of Me and My Environment, a 3-year life science curriculum for 13- to 16-year-old educable mentally handicapped (EMH) adolescents. Discussed are the purpose and interpretation of student data for judging a curriculum. Described in relation to development of test items for the first field test year are aspects such as item format analysis. Functional abilities of students are considered in relation to intelligence and achievement tests, teacher rating of students, problem solving, cognitive development, grouping, and prerequisite knowledge. Explained are differences in performance seen in results of regression analysis and differences in performance among classes. Student performance is analyzed for the directionality and map reading, measurement and scale, temperature, and environmental subtests in Unit I; and for the energy, food chains and webs, food energy, weight and temperature, graphing, and categorizing subtests in unit II. Results are given which show that performance on 25 items in Unit I was not as high as expected, that students in one fourth of the classes showed marked gains on posttests, that one third of students in nine classes were successful on at least one subtest, and that performance on 19 items in Unit II was moderate (one third of students in six classes performed successfully on at least one subtest). Considerable revision of both units is foreseen. Also, findings are given to indicate that individual intelligence tests explain little of the variance in student performance, whereas problem solving and teacher rating do explain the variance. (MC)
Publication Type: N/A
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: Bureau of Education for the Handicapped (DHEW/OE), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, Boulder, CO.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A