This paper contains results of an empirical study that tested the efficacy and acceptability of two templates designed to fully involve students in proper and fair peer-assessments of their group project work (GPW) by providing concrete evidence of independent progressive documentation of their peers' contributions to the work-process and…

Designed to assess consistency in teacher judgment of student essays and to assess conformity of teacher judgment with expert judgment, the Composition Rating Scale (CRS) requires the taker to rank-order five brief compositions. Requiring twenty minutes to complete, the scale can be used to evaluate the consistency of teacher judgments of…

Designed to provide a scale for assessing the quality of short expository essays, this material includes a group of six expository essays about 250-300 words in length arranged in order of quality. Each essay is followed by critical comments and a general discussion of the characteristics of essays at that level of quality. No validity or…

Designed to assess the quality of pieces of creative writing in the intermediate and junior high grades, the Sager Writing Scale (SWS) is intended for use by both students and teachers or by researchers. The SWS contains four scales with four ratings possible in the areas of vocabulary, elaboration, organization, and structure. Validity for the…

To evaluate the quality of written compositions, researchers at Educational Testing Service developed the Composition Evaluation Scales (CES), after factor-analytic studies of the reasons teachers gave for their judgments of compositions. This is a set of eight scales: ideas, organization, wording, flavor, usage, punctuation, spelling, and…

The impact of NCHEMS (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems) products upon planning and management tasks is examined in this study performed at a sample of 126 institutions. The institutions have used one or more of the following NCHEMS products: Program Classification of Structure (PCS); Resource Requirements Prediction Model…

The project documented in this report identified barriers researchers encounter in gaining access to--i.e., identifying, acquiring, handling, and using--published information and measured the seriousness of the more significant barriers. Fifty-one barriers were identified, and a method of measuring their seriousness was developed. Thirty of the…

General research designs and procedures, special methods applicable to libraries and media centers, and research techniques from educational technology are discussed in this guide to research applications in the school media center. Topics covered include the nature of the research process; the identification and definition of researchable…

The "Notes & Reflections" newsletter offers practical information--ideas, strategies, tools, and resources--about topics of special interest to professional developers who are working to improve school performance. Today, professional development services to schools are provided by variety of people: teacher leaders; principals; and district,…

This manual contains nine articles intended to assist student financial aid professionals in conducting research. Initial chapters provide basic information for those starting to do such research while later chapters deal with more complex issues. Some chapters include appendices that provide examples of the techniques under consideration. from…