Research on the major computerized adaptive testing (CAT) strategies is reviewed, and some findings are reported that examine effects of examinee demographic and psychological characteristics on CAT strategies. In fixed branching strategies, all examinees respond to a common routing test, the score of which is used to assign examinees to a…

The 14 chapters of this book focus on the technical advances, advances in applied settings, and emerging topics in the testing field. Part 1 discusses methodological advances, Part 2 considers developments in applied settings, and Part 3 reviews emerging topics in the field of testing. Part 1 papers include: (1) "Advances in…

This study investigates the responses of teachers in Texas to a state-mandated pupil testing program. Based on literature reviewed, it was expected that effects of the mandated tests would relate to teacher burnout and account for differences in teachers' feelings of control over curricular, teaching, and professional decisions. The responses of…

This practicum was designed to improve the congruency of resources, activities, and assessment strategies in intermediate-level language arts programs with a holistic process-oriented perspective on literacy development. Taking place in a large public elementary school in Vancouver, Canada, the practicum's goals were: (1) to implement…

The humanist position for the teaching of values can be turned against English teachers and literature education when it is based primarily on the assumption that literature directly portrays life, a strategy which was used by a religious fundamentalist group, Renaissance Peterborough, in its dispute with officials of Peterborough County, Ontario,…

Romance novels have become increasingly popular and sexually explicit, in part because women may gain a sense of self through reading them and perhaps in reaction to the patriarchal structure of society. Women may seek escape and a sense of self-identity through the novels'"larger-than-life" characters and predictable endings. Readers of…

Drawing from both research and practice, the articles in this collection address a number of issues related to the reading and writing connection. The 24 articles are grouped into five sections: "Reading, Writing, and Thinking"; "The Parts and the Whole"; "Reading for Writing"; "Contexts for Literacy"; and…

Although student evaluation of instruction has been shown to produce reliable results over class averages, considerable within-class variability exists that has not been investigated. This study looked at examples of student evaluations in which students diametrically differed in their evaluation of the same instructor. Patterns were noted. A…

In this article, the author describes the current state of research on web-based instruction and posits new directions to expand the current paradigm. Issues of faculty attitude and support toward distance education, instructional immediacy, and the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering and Gamson, 1986) relative…

This paper presents a set of three integrative exercises created to help college students develop workplace skills through simulation. Interviewing, listening, providing feedback, setting goals, empowering, coaching, managing change, handling conflict, and making decisions are clustered and modeled at intervals that synthesize course learning.

Entrepreneurship courses commonly use various kinds of group work, cooperative learning, study circles and study teams. A major challenge of this pedagogy is the unbiased grading of group members based on the accountability of individual performances. This paper provides an approach to using student peer assessment to provide feedback on…

This paper analyzes the process and impact of a pre-service teacher education course assignment that engaged teacher candidates in developing and delivering an ESL professional development night for faculty colleagues and teachers from the field. The night involved a reader's theatre performance and follow-up discussion of Tara Goldstein's (2003)…

This coding manual was developed for the Texas Teacher Effectiveness Study and is intended to be self-contained. The coding system provides for extensive coding of student initiated questions and comments, opinion questions, and expanded private work contracts, both teacher initiated and student initiated, including extensive coding of quality and…

Investigations into item bias provide an empirical basis for the identification and elimination of test items which appear to measure different traits across populations or cultural groups. The Psychometric rationales for six approaches to the identification of biased test items are reviewed: (1) Transformed item difficulties: within-group…

This twelfth in a series of twenty-nine learning modules on instructional execution is designed to give secondary and postsecondary vocational teachers help in developing the skills needed to employ oral questioning techniques. Introductory sections relate the competency dealt with here to others in the program and list both the enabling…