To investigate the feasibility of developing hands-on instruments to aid classroom teachers in assessing both entering and exiting skills of the special needs students in vocational education, a continuing project at the University of Pittsburgh was conducted to meet two major objectives: develop a definitive rationale for the design of a hands-on instrument by which the vocational classroom teacher could diagnose entry skills and measure exit skills of special education students and design a hands-on instrument based on the above rationale for several occupational areas. The project resulted in the following outcomes: the development of a rationale and procedures for the design of the instruments, an entering instrument to diagnose auto mechanics skills, and an exiting instrument to assess competence in food services skills. A large appendix accompanies this final report and includes the following materials: an example of synthesis procedures (auto mechanics); the auto mechanics synthesis; the food services synthesis; the auto mechanics entering skills instrument; the food services exiting skills instrument; and the rationale paper supporting the hands-on instrument project. (Author/BM)