This paper reports on an independent review of two examinations designed to assess teacher competencies: the Praxis Series and the Content Mastery Examinations for Educators (CMEE). The review was ordered by the Montana Department of Public Education in order to decide which battery of tests would replace the National Teacher Examination (NTE).…

This report provides direction for assessment policy and practice in employability and work force education and training programs serving youth and adult learners in Iowa. It provides a research base for the consideration of common assessment instruments for youth and adult learners in these programs. The report first identifies existing…

This report is a comprehensive needs assessment study that provides the foundation for a statewide adult basic education (ABE) accountability system in Iowa. Data from this study, conducted in 1993-94 by the Iowa Department of Education, were collected through a survey mailed to a total of 9,700 ABE program staff, community agency contact persons,…

A study of patterns of literacy behaviors in high level literacy environments with varying levels of access to the environment began with a study of the instruments involved. Goals were to: (1) examine the reliability of the Survey of Displayed Literacy Stimuli; (2) study the correlation between scores from the Survey of Displayed Literacy Stimuli…

"Te Ngahere, The Forest" is a kit comprised of a teacher's guide, activity cards, a resource book, a poster, and a picture pack to inform New Zealand students of forest and forestry in New Zealand. This document reports results of a mail survey to determine the number of teachers and schools with knowledge of the kit, the extent of that…

While the 1960s and 1970s came to be known as the era of curriculum development in science, it appears that the 1980s and the 1990s will be known as the time of curriculum development with strengthened attention to implementation and evaluation. This book examines the assessment of elementary school science and provides numerous examples of…

A new video evaluation instrument is demonstrated. It is designed specifically for distance education, to be used for instructional design consultation, distance education teacher training, or research. Categories include students interacting with teachers, with other students, and content. Analyzing interaction in two-way television requires an…

Development and initial validation are described for an instrument to assess the behavioral coping skills of adolescents. The Assessment of Behavioral Coping Skills (ABCS) was designed for use in the South Carolina Coping Skills Project, a school-based coping skills prevention program for adolescents at high risk for substance abuse. The ABCS…

The monograph provides a systematic explication of the underlying standards and principles that have been developed to help adult learners articulate what they know and can do, to clarify their claims to creditable achievement, to help assessors improve the reliability of assessment, and to save assessor time. Ten academic and administrative…

Two studies sought to identify variables that might predict relative success in student teaching performance. University supervisors ranked program graduates on overall student teaching success after they had successfully completed all mastery criteria. The first study compared students on achievement test scores, grade point average (GPA), and…

To determine whether reading and writing are as closely related as commonly supposed, a study estimated the amount of overlap that exists between several components of reading and writing knowledge. Data were obtained from 256 second graders and 251 fifth graders. Reading measures included tests of phonics (word knowledge), vocabulary (lexical…

Gender differences in achievement test performance at the college level were studied as part of the initial analysis of the recently developed Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP)--an achievement test battery for use in higher education. The CAAP was pilot tested in fall 1988 and includes a measure of writing proficiency and four…

Employment tests predict job performance because they measure or are correlated with a large set of malleable developed abilities, which are causally related to productivity. Our economy currently under-rewards the achievements that are measured by these tests. Consequently, economic incentives to study hard in high school are minimal, and this…

A study was conducted to investigate parental belief systems and parental childrearing practices relative to the intellectual development of their communication-handicapped preschool children. Consideration was given to the context of family size and ordinal position of the communication-handicapped child. A total of 60 two-parent families with…

The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) offers an approach to the study of change by focusing on the needs of individuals and describing their growth over time. Seven Stages of Concern (SoC) have been identified that occur as a teacher adopts an innovation: (1) little concern about or involvement with the innovation; (2) interest in learning more…