The authors report on an exploratory pilot project implemented in a large city on the U.S.-Mexico border. The project focuses on a curricular design in a secondary school where beginning-level English as a second language students are taught English language arts in Spanish. The researchers sought to determine whether these students made greater…

The knowledge that 17-year-old students in a local city school district had of literature and history was assessed using the same test items administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A review of national results of the NAEP examination in 1986 has highlighted the gaps in knowledge of this age group. The Austin (Texas)…

The insights provided by Rasch analysis of results from a literature test were explored. Students in grades 9, 10, and 11 (n=261) responded to a 28-item test before they received one of three treatments: (1) direct instruction, based on research on metacognition in reading, which attempts to give conscious control of strategies used to understand…

The purpose of this booklet is to provide social studies teachers with student writing samples that exemplify the criteria used to score students' responses on the June 1987 Alberta (Canada) Social Studies 30 Diploma Examination. Students choose one of two possible essay questions that required writing a defense of individual initiative in…

Because of a concern by the Alaska State Department of Education that results from the American College Test (ACT) and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) are not being used to their fullest advantage to improve secondary instruction, the use of these assessment results by other states was studied. A two-page survey and request for copies of state…

This study investigated the effects of heuristically based assignments and tests on adolescents' written responses to literature. In order to examine both tests and instruction, two separate but related experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 investigated whether the inclusion of guided prewriting on essay tests for two poems and two short…

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) was contracted by the National Center for Education Statistics to investigate changes in tested achievement using cross-sectional comparisons between the 1972 National Longitudinal Study (NLS) seniors and the 1980 High School and Beyond (HSB) senior cohort. The ETS is also responsible for estimating the extent…