This study examined influences upon experienced teachers' course planning. Seven teachers were each intensively interviewed four times about their planning for courses they had never before taught; the interviews took place before, after, and twice during the semester of the "new" course in question. Findings were classified into three categories…

A series of three experiments was conducted for the purposes of (1) clarifying problems of previous research on the relationship between working memory capacity and performance on figural analogy tasks, and (2) exploring developmental issues concerning executive strategies, working memory capacity, and perceptual processing. Directly manipulating…

Vicki Zack, a classroom teacher and researcher, returned to the fifth grade classroom in 1989 after more than a decade of teaching in a university faculty of education in order to teach in the changing ecologies of classrooms (with problem-solving approaches in mathematics and literature-based approaches in reading) and to research from the…

In part 1 of this article Zack and Reid offered two examples of students operating with good-enough understandings in mathematics, and related their understandings to features of good-enough understanding identified by Mackey (I997) in the context of reading. Mackey contends that the ability to read further, on the basis of a very imperfect…

This learning module, which is intended for use in in-service training for vocational rehabilitation counselors, deals with writing a task analysis. Step-by-step guidelines are provided for breaking down a task into small teachable steps by analyzing the task in terms of the way in which it will be performed once learned (method), the steps to be…

This report focuses on current attempts by researchers to examine teacher effectiveness through the "task hypothesis," which asserts that effective teachers accomplish a large and diverse set of tasks--or discrete, goal-oriented units of work--in their classroom. After an introductory critique of past efforts to assess teacher "traits" or…

This K-12 reading curriculum for exceptional child education is arranged in a format comparable to the general education curriculum, and is sequenced in the order in which most children learn. The curriculum begins with a list of 123 objectives of the reading program. The objectives cover the areas of perceptual skills, word attack, structural…

The guide is intended to provide information on appropriate programing for elementary and secondary pupils with either perceptual/communicative or emotional/behavioral disorders. The guide, which is patterned after regular education objectives, offers comprehensive task analysis in four content areas (subtopics in parentheses): (1) readiness…

This task analysis guide is intended to help teachers and administrators develop instructional materials and implement competency-based education in the agricultural production program. Section 1 contains a validated task inventory for the livestock production portion of agricultural production IV and V. Tasks are divided into six duty areas:…

To improve the responsiveness of educational programs to the needs of low achieving, at risk students, Research for Better Schools (RBS) has developed an assessment procedure. This document is the portion of that procedure that addresses the involvement of students in their learning, or how low achieving students cognitively operate on content.…

The manual addresses the design and implementation of personnel practices for improving the preparation and performance of paraprofessionals who work with developmentally disabled persons in community-based settings. The first part of the manual describes components of a comprehensive system of career development (entry level positions, career…

In an initial section, this paper presents a review of the literature and discusses the hypothesized relationship between self-efficacy, (defined as personal judgments of how well one can organize and implement behaviors in situations that may contain novel, unpredictable and possibly stressful elements) and achievement behavior. Source of…

Results are presented of the Nursing Delineation Pilot Study, which was conducted in 1981-1982 as part of a nursing project to develop a coordinated statewide system of nursing education in Kentucky. Gilpatrick's Health Services Mobility Study Method of Task Analysis and Curriculum Design (1977) was used to identify and describe tasks of different…

If preschool teachers are to plan for each child on the basis of his or her needs, they must engage in several basic program adaptation procedures. They must know how to assess each child's individual skill levels in each area of development. They must also understand task analysis and be able to specify learning objectives for each child.…

This manual provides the information needed to conduct a job analysis and to enter or update job analysis information in the Computerized Task Inventory (COMTASK) database. Chapter I presents the purpose and organization of the manual. The second chapter provides a brief background on the purpose and design of COMTASK, a definition of terms used…