Turning Points schools create a new culture built around the collaboration of all members of the school community. This collaborative culture requires structures that empower teachers and administrators to work together to make the most important decisions regarding the educational experiences of their students. The two primary components of this…

In this issue, we explore how community partnerships to support formal learning and development matter and how they can be created and sustained. In "Research Update," we discuss the results of a new report and poll on 21st century skills that affirms that every student needs a "basics plus" education that pushes beyond core academic knowledge to…

Visual evaluation techniques provide the kinesiologist with a method of evaluating physical skill performance. The techniques are divided into five categories: (1) vantage point; (2) movement simplification; (3) balance and stability; (4) movement relationships; and (5) range of movement. (JN)

Summarizes research regarding psychomotor skill development in technical education and offers suggestions for teaching machine use skills. Four tables display data from various researchers' studies under headings for models for classifying the psychomotor domain, knowledge of results, type of feedback, and type of video feedback. (MF)

Skill is a social construct that assumes different meanings in particular historical circumstances. This paper explains how the dominant concept of skill has shifted in twentieth-century Australia from being job- and content-specific to a more generic view (embracing cognitive, technical, and operational, social, and affective skills) that…

Researchers compared psychomotor skill performance in isolation and in competitive game situations with seventh grade boys taught basketball using Bloom's mastery learning model or nonmastery procedures. Mastery subjects surpassed control and nonmastery groups on all skills performed in isolation. No significant differences existed in skill…

Contributions of motor skill and cognition to sport performance change across age, expertise, and sports. Knowledge and decision making should not limit the development of expertise. Specific strategies for teachers may help students develop expertise. The paper discusses the contribution of knowledge and skill to expertise and its development.…

Preschool children (n=115) in Poland were tested in five areas: counting, equipotency of sets, dividing, adding, and comparing. Results showed that these children already had informal knowledge of many of the concepts and skills included in the mathematics curriculum in the early grades. (PDD)

The problem-solving performance of high-achieving (HA) and low-achieving (LA) 11th-grade students was compared during solution of geometry problems using a think-aloud procedure. Detailed analysis of problem-solving protocols indicated that HA students not only accessed a greater body of geometrical knowledge but also used that knowledge more…

The authors present a rationale for developing core competencies for training and organizational development in extension. Core competencies are defined as "the basic knowledge, attitudes, skills, and observable behaviors that lead to excellence in the workplace." Competency-based models can be used to create an infrastructure that…

This paper examines a data set that has its origins in European Social Fund Objective 4 financed training programmes in small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Britain to examine the extent to which three different personal development outcomes are attributable to different types of skills acquired during the training process. The three…

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study of position vacant announcements appropriate for library and information studies (LIS) graduates appearing in the "Sydney Morning Herald" over a four week period in each of the following years: 2004, 1994, 1984 and 1974. The period studied witnessed change-demanding developments in…

The study investigated the effectiveness of a school-based movement programme for a population of 5 to 7 year old children. Performance profiles on the Movement ABC were used to classify the children and to assess skill changes over time. Children were assigned to four different groups: motor learning difficulty (n = 10), borderline motor learning…

A 2-year project investigated the ability of secondary school teachers to identify the top 10 percent of students in each of four subjects, English, French, physics, and mathematics. The students were tested on a wide range of aptitudes and attitudes at the beginning of their third form (ninth grade). Teachers were asked to list students they…

A two-year study designed to evaluate an elementary language arts program in the Grande Prairie School District (Edmonton, Alberta) through an assessment of student achievement was conducted from 1983 to 1985. A major focus of the study was the area of listening, and the listening tests and teacher's manuals presented in this document are intended…