The development, school district implementation, and initial validation of the Wicat Skills Assessment Test--a computerized testing system for state assessment objectives--are described. Testing with 10,000 students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9 began in Texas in 1986-87 and 1987-88. Results support the feasibility for districtwide computerized…

The construct validities of the Self Description Questionnaire I, the Perceived Social Competence Scale, and the Multidimensional Measure of Children's Perceptions of Control were assessed, using 508 seventh through ninth graders in Sydney (Australia). Factor analysis, multitrait-multimethod analyses, and patterns of correlations with additional…

Objective: This article reports findings of three studies addressing convergent validity and test-retest reliability of the Youth Rating Scale of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition (BERS-2). Method: Pearson product-moment correlations were used in all three studies, the first two addressing convergent validity and the third…

The School Within-a-School Program (SWAS) of the Kansas City (Missouri) Public Schools was established as an intervention/reform program, which became part of the court-ordered desegregation program, for at-risk students in grades 7 and 9. In the last year of evaluation, the group consisted of 678 students. This summative longitudinal evaluation…

Recent trends in achievement test scores among elementary and secondary school students in Iowa are examined. Form 7 of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) was used to measure the achievement of students in grades 3 and 7; and Form X-7 of the Iowa Tests of Educational Development (ITED) was used for 11th graders. These grade levels were chosen…

This report provides an overview of the Oklahoma School Testing Program (OSTP) and summarizes students' average writing assessment scores from 1987 through 1992. Oklahoma has completed its 6th year of administering a state legislature mandated test to 10th graders and its 5th year of testing 7th graders. The Stanford Writing Assessment Program was…

This report provides an overview of the Oklahoma School Testing Program (OSTP) and summarizes students' average writing assessment scores from 1987 through 1993. In 1992, the Stanford Writing Assessment replaced the MAT-6 Writing Test as the instrument for measuring writing achievement for 7th and 10th graders in Oklahoma. Student papers were hand…

The research was conducted in Sydney and Hong Kong using students, from grades 5 to 9, whose first language or teaching medium was English, learning to read Chinese as second language. According to cognitive load theory, the processing of single Chinese characters accompanied by pictures should impose extraneous cognitive load and thus hinders…

Findings from a survey administered to large numbers of grade 7-10 students are presented in this paper. The focus is on the students' attitudes towards the use of computers for the learning of mathematics. Background information was also gathered which allowed the students' responses to be analysed by a range of equity factors--gender, ethnicity,…

Over a period of about 3 years, 3204 students in Grades 4 to 10 completed 9862 tests to identify and track their interpretation of decimal notation. Analysis of the longitudinal data demonstrates that different misconceptions persist among students to different degrees and in different patterns across the grades. Estimating the prevalence of…

Investigates ethnic acceptance among 613 Israeli middle grade students. Using self-reports determines the degree students wish to be involved with their homeroom classmates. Finds lower ethnic status peers accepted more readily when they score higher on indices of sociability, academic track level, and achievement. Discusses implications for…

The opportunity and right to obtain a free public education provides the opportunity for all Americans to achieve success socially, financially, and professionally. The public education system has endured decades of changes as it attempts to address social, cultural, and academic issues that arise as the nation evolves. The public education system…

Investigates the relationship between age of arrival in the second-language environment and a preference for prosodic versus syntactic cues to sentence interpretation in English. The study found that older English-as-a-Second-Language learners were just as likely as the younger ones to attend to prosody rather than syntax. (43 references)…

This research monograph on the social and emotional development of gifted students' is divided into four parts. Part 1 of the report focuses on analysis of the literature. Parts 2-4 present results of seven qualitative and quantitative studies of adolescent development. In Part 2, Studies 1 and 2 expand Lazarus and Folkman's cognitive appraisal…

The current investigation was an exploration of the first year of a multi-year project designed to provide every Grade 3 to Grade 11 student throughout an English school board in Quebec with a laptop computer. Data were collected from 403 elementary and 270 secondary students from the experimental school board and also from 330 students in the…