School psychologists are in a unique position to add to the discussion about accountability efforts and the effect on students, teachers, and education. At the end of North Carolina's 2000-2001 school year, End-of-Grade (EOG) scores will be used to hold individual students accountable for their own achievement. Fifth graders will be required to…

Student engagement during testing in the full range of writing process activities they had been taught was studied. Results with 28 third-grade draft sets, 21 fifth-grade sets, and 38 eighth-grade sets on the Maryland School Performance Assessment writing test show that students' peer responses are unengaged, minimal, and formulaic, and that their…

Describes two studies that examined the nature of Japanese elementary and junior high school students' perceptions of different media, the effect of teachers on these perceptions, and the relationship between perceptions and student learning. The studies of fifth graders and eighth graders also addressed gender and class differences. (Contains…

Examined how gender, grade level, empathy, and cultural orientation influenced fifth and eighth grade African American students' moral judgements. Students completed a variety of assessments. There was greater endorsement of communalism among girls than boys. Grade was a significant predictor of moral reasoning. The full complement of predictive…

This unit is one of a series that presents specific moments in history from which students focus on the meanings of landmark events. The lessons included in this unit attempt to make slavery comprehensible to students, showing its oppressiveness and yet explaining how white Southern culture rationalized and sustained it. The unit also explains how…

This unit is one of a series that represents specific moments in history from which students focus on the meanings of landmark events. By relying on primary sources, this unit explores the Puritans' attempt to create a utopian community in New England, the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The unit is built around 7 objectives: (1) to study historical…

Students' attitudes and preparation practices regarding standardized tests were studied with students from one elementary school and two middle schools in Atlanta (Georgia). There were 111 fifth graders (35 African American and 76 European American) and 274 eighth graders (204 African American and 70 European American). Students completed a survey…

A drug abuse prevention curriculum for middle school students in grades five through eight is presented in this document, one of a series that is designed to provide educators with the curricular tools necessary to challenge students to take personal responsibility for their health. Each of the 11 lessons includes information of the lesson…

Restatements of the educational standards and the science competencies established by the New Mexico State Board of Education are provided in this document. Identified as basic and process skills, these checkpoint competencies are tied directly to the exit competencies for science. It is suggested that the checkpoint competencies be used as a…

A locally revised measure of self-concept and racial attitudes was used to determine if factor analysis could detect possible item bias. Participants were 2,800 Hispanic Americans, Whites, and Blacks in fifth or eighth grade. A classical factor analysis (using commonality estimates) with Varimax rotation defined the factor structure of all…

The Quality Measurement Project (QMP), initiated in 1957, published its final report, a School Quality Workbook, in 1963. When the achievement tests on which the QMP norms were based were renormed by the publisher, it was decided to test again in 1965. The results of that testing are reported herein. Testing was restricted to grades 5 and 8 in…

The relationship between cloze and multiple-choice tests as measures of reading comprehension at two grade levels, fifth and eighth, was investigated. The reading passages used in the testing were at difficulty levels either 2 years below, 2 years above, or at the subjects' grade level. The final subject sampling included 708 students from each…

Investigates relationships between television viewing and both the content and form of children's event representations. Examines two narratives, a "television" story and a "real-life" story, written by children in grades three, five, and eight, for the presence of particular kinds of content and for presentational style and…

Out of the 38 nations studied in the 1999 "Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study" (TIMSS), children in Singapore scored highest in mathematics (National Center for Education Statistics, NCES, 2003). Why do Singapore's children do so well in mathematics? The reasons are undoubtedly complex and involve social aspects.…

This article describes a study evaluating the impact of school-counselor-led interventions on student academic achievement and school success behavior. A group counseling and classroom guidance model called student success skills (SSS) was the primary intervention. The focus of the SSS model was on three sets of skills identified in several…