Persuasion theories typically attempt to account for attitude change, but mass media reviews influence more ephemeral variables, the chief of which is "interest" in attending or otherwise consuming a cultural event or object. Reviewing and other forms of "evaluative journalism"--including much sports, consumer, and political…

Research in the area of person perception has been dominated by the assumption that people seek stable trait information and view others as highly consistent. To examine whether perceivers would have difficulty in thinking of ways that people have changed, and in reporting instances of such change, 120 college students were asked to complete short…

Voice can be considered as the writer's attitude toward the reader (the rhetorical function) and the writer's attitude toward the subject or object being written about (the epistemic function). Voice is expressed by such things as word choice, rhythm, sound, and juxtaposition of words and sentences. Moreover, the writer's attitude toward the…

This document provides units to assist teachers and parents in evaluating kindergarten and preschool curricula. Preparing an evaluation and planning an evaluation are covered in units I and II. Two other units have been written as resource documents and present data-gathering methods and ways of reporting and using information. The authors stress…

Theories or explanations of educational evaluation are discussed and categorized under two broad methodological headings, the objectivist and subjectivist epistemological orientations. They can be seen as potentially complementary empirical approaches that offer evaluators two methodological orientations to assess educational-reform outcomes.…

The synthesis of historical definitions presented in this paper was designed to trace the development of the process of evaluation, showing how modern educational evaluation has evolved and identifyinq some points of confusion. The importance of the integration of evaluation into the overall educational process is emphasized. (Author/RAO)

The purpose of this research project was to investigate the assumption of equivalent evaluative skills in good and poor readers. The first goal was to test whether in fact good and poor readers were equivalent in their evaluative skills when not constrained by the reading process. The second intent was to provide a reading condition in which good…

How teachers evaluate the various instructional methods at their disposal is the question addressed in this paper. The issue is examined in an effort to determine which of certain models of teaching some teachers prefer, how teachers categorize models of teaching, and which factors are associated with their preferences. Results suggest that role…

This paper reports two studies of the effects of empathic instruction on first graders' evaluations of other people. In Experiment 1, 23 children received either empathic or non-empathic instructions, listened to a taped conversation in which the main character obtained either a positive or negative outcome, and then evaluated both the main…

This paper presents a series of studies related to the question of how children learn to evaluate themselves in achievement situations. The approach to the research is based on the Weiner et al attributional model of achievement. The paper describes three studies designed to determine the extent to which first, second and third grade children use…

The Invitational Conference on Testing Problems has been a major convocation among the various annual meetings of those who are concerned with educational measurement. The first paper by Richard Anderson deals with the evaluation of a small part of an instructional program and deals with it in an experimental fashion. The presentation by Ethna…

Sparked by James P. Beckford's article, "Administering the Independent Study Program" (Independent School Bulletin, February 1974, p.57), the author supplemented his comments by addressing two major aspects of independent study. The first is the notion that independent study is an educational vehicle or tool and the second is how it fits in with a…

Shows how subjects' varying levels of academic achievement influenced their judgments of the grammatical acceptability of simple sentences, suggesting that differing levels of deep structure accompany differing levels of education. (RL)

Describes a recent examination of the treatment of economics in high school social studies textbooks. Concludes that most texts were deficient in their treatment of economics and that there were errors of fact and interpretation in many texts. (Author/DB)