Student evaluations of college teaching have been endorsed and criticized for as long as they have been used as part of important decision-making practices in higher education. With the growth of distance education, the need for alternative approaches for these assessments has increased. We were interested in the extent to which outcomes were…

Although there is a strong legislative base and perceived efficacy for multidisciplinary team decision making, limited evidence supports its effectiveness or consistency of implementation in practice. In recent research, we used the Decision Observation, Recording, and Analysis (DORA) tool to document activities and adult behaviors during positive…

School teams regularly meet to review academic and social problems of individual students, groups of students, or their school in general. While the need for problem solving and recommendations for how to do it are widely documented, there is very limited evidence reflecting the extent to which teams effectively engage in a systematic or effective…

Given the rapid growth of diversity in schools across the country, teacher educators are turning to innovative ways to redesign their programs. In this article, we describe efforts of a dual licensure program in which undergraduate teachers-in-training acquired knowledge and skills in core content, as well as evidence-based pedagogy and discipline…

Student evaluation of instruction in college and university courses has been a routine and mandatory part of undergraduate and graduate education for some time. A major shortcoming of the process is that it relies exclusively on the opinions or qualitative judgments of students rather than on assessing the learning or transfer of knowledge that…

This article addresses the effects of 3-tiered comprehensive reading and behavior interventions on K-3 student outcomes in 7 urban elementary schools with a high prevalence of students considered difficult to teach. Specific features of each level of the implementation are described including screening and tier placement procedures, scheduling and…

Findings are presented of a gifted identification assessment at the second-grade level (n=600) founded on the principles of Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory. Positive relations were evident among scores for different types of intelligences and the traditional measure. The Problem Solving Assessment procedure resulted in a more diverse…

First introduced in the mid-1920s, student evaluation of instruction is a routine, mandatory part of teaching in colleges and universities in America. In this research, we summarized what is known about evaluating the effectiveness of instruction in postsecondary education and proposed areas for improvements, as well as considerations for future…

Evaluated the extent to which similar decisions concerning student placement were made by multidisciplinary team members based on varying amounts of assessment information. Found that individuals who reviewed large amounts of information made decisions similar to those who reviewed little information. Found about half the decisions accurate.…

A national survey of 94 Directors of Special Education was conducted to ascertain: (1) the number of students referred for psychoeducational evaluation; (2) the number of referred students evaluated; and (3) the number of evaluated students placed in special education programs. For each of the school years during 1977-80, the percentage of…

Analysis of the numbers of referred students who were evaluated and the number of evaluated students who received special education from 1977-80 in 94 districts revealed that, overall, the probabilities associated with the evaluation of referred students and delivery of special education sevices to evaluated students were high. (CL)

The extent to which computer simulated classification decisions within special education were differentially affected by information presented at the time of the referral was investigated. Decisions about 16 different cases were evaluated and found to be a function of referral information rather than child performance data. The outcomes are…

Educational decision makers (N=224) participated in a computer simulated decison making experience designed to ascertain the extent to which referral information biased classification decisions. Ss ignored standardized test information indicative of average performance and retained the stereotype created by the referral information. (Author)

Three investigations examined the effects of IQ and chronological age (CA) on the calculation of severe discrepancy levels of 102 hypothetical and 125 actual severely learning disabled students (5 to 17 years old). Results indicated that IQ was highly influential on obtained severe discrepancy levels (SDLs) and related percentage discrepancies;…

The psychoeducational processes school diagnosticians use in decisions about students were studied. Bogus referral problem information for one of 16 "cases" was provided: assessment data indicated average performance. Fifty-two percent of the subjects recommended special education for the average child; these decisions were a function of referral…