THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGES: MISSISSIPPI'S SYSTEM OF COMMUNITY AND JUNIOR COLLEGES

Mississippi's system of public community and junior colleges developed as a response to changing educational needs in the state. The need to provide secondary education to rural areas of the state led to the agricultural high school movement in 1908. Time diminished the need for these schools, so the state's educational leadership proposed using the facilities to offer college‐level coursework. In 1928, Mississippi counties were authorized to join together in forming junior college districts. The colleges began as agencies of local government and continue so to the present. A state‐level office with coordinating responsibilities was established at the State Department of Education. The state's system of 2‐year colleges began just 1 year before the national economic depression. Easy access and low costs made the junior colleges attractive to Mississippians then and now. The junior college mission was to offer university transfer programs to students. After World War II, the junior colleges expanded their missions to include vocational and technical training. This was in response to the demands of business and industry as well as the needs of veterans returning to the workforce. Postwar industrial development in the state gave the junior colleges a greater role in workforce training. Mississippi's two‐year colleges have experienced demographic and technology changes that reflect national trends. In contrast to most other states, Mississippi's community and junior college leadership continues to identify university parallel programs as their primary mission.     

THE EFFECT OF SELECTED POOR ITEM-WRITING PRACTICES ON TEST DIFFICULTY, RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

Violations of four selected principles of writing multiple choice items were introduced into an undergraduate political science examination. Three of the four poor practices had no overall effect on test difficulty. A significant (α= .05) interaction effect between the poor practices and course achievement occurred for one of the four practices, with the poorer students generally gaining most from the poorly written items. KR 20 values were significantly lower for sets of items with the same flaws than for "good" versions of the items in three of four comparisons. The reductions in reliability were equivalent to those expected to result from shortening the test by 13 to 56 percent. Concurrent validity (correlation of experimental test scores with final examination scores) was significantly lower in two of four cases. The reductions in validity were equivalent to those expected to result from shortening the test by 56 to 83 percent.     

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN COMMUNITY/JUNIOR COLLEGES: THE STATE OF THE ART AS VIEWED BY THE ACADEMIC AFFAIRS OFFICER

The purpose of this study was to determine the state of the art in curriculum development in U.S. community/junior colleges. Responding to a questionnaire of 33 items, 184 academic affairs officers expressed their perception of community/junior college curriculum development including (1) goals and objectives, (2) content, (3) learning experiences, (4) learner characteristics, and (5) planning and evaluation. Several areas are identified as needing attention that provide direction for improved curriculum development.     

THE KNOWLEDGE OF MEMORY AGING QUESTIONNAIRE

A new questionnaire, the Knowledge of Memory Aging Questionnaire, assesses general knowledge of normal and pathological memory aging for use with students, older adults, and service providers who work with the elderly. The questionnaire consists of 28 true/false items covering a broad range of memory behaviors     

THE CONCURRENT VALIDITY OF STANDARDIZED ACHIEVEMENT TESTS BY CONTENT AREA USING TEACHERS' RATINGS AS CRITERIA

To assess the concurrent validity of standardized achievement tests using teachers' ratings (and rankings) of pupils' academic achievement as criteria, 42 teachers evaluated each of their students (n = 1,032) in each of five major curricular areas prior to the administration of a battery of standardized achievement tests. The teachers were directed to rate each student's proficiency disregarding attendance, attitude, deportment, and so on. Within-class correlation coefficients were computed to eliminate rater leniency bias. The standardized achievement tests were found to have substantial concurrent validity in reading, math, language arts, science, and social studies. The normalized teacher ranks yielded significantly higher validity coefficients than did the ratings, although the magnitude of the difference was small. The concurrent validity coefficients for language arts, reading, and math were significantly higher than those in science and social studies.     

MEASURING THE ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS OF WRITING ABILITY

The present study assessed the relationship among holistic writing ability, the Test of Standard Written English (TSWE), and the following tests of organizational ability: anagram solving, word reordering, sentence reordering, and paragraph assembly. Based upon a sample of 105 undergraduate students, the main findings were that writing ability, as measured by the holistic method of scoring, was significantly correlated with performance on the TSWE and the four tests of organizational ability. A composite score on all four organizational tests was found to have the highest zero-order correlation with the measure of writing ability. A stepwise regression analysis, with the measure of writing ability as the criterion, also indicated that the composite score explained a significant proportion of the variance beyond that explained by the TSWE. The results are discussed in terms of the Kintsch and van Dijk model of strategic discourse processing, which suggests that different organizational strategies operate at the levels of words, sentences, and paragraphs. It is concluded that tests assessing organizational strategies ought to be included in assessments of writing ability.     

MISSISSIPPI TECH-PREP COORDINATORS: IDENTIFYING CHALLENGES OF THE JOB

ABSTRACT

Mississippi tech-prep coordinators were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the difficulty of their various job responsibilities as identified in the Mississippi Tech Prep Handbook Pilot Site Implementation Guide 1993–94 (1993 Mississippi tech prep handbook pilot site implementation guide 1993-94 . ( 1993 ). Mississippi State , MS : Research and Curriculum Unit for Workforce Development, Vocational and Technical Education . [Google Scholar]). It was hypothesized that their perceptions would be influenced by the number of sites served by individual tech-prep coordinators and the number of years of experience of the individual coordinators. The coordinators' survey also included open-ended questions to gain insight into specific challenges, such as additional duties assigned by the community college, and changes in responsibilities that have occurred over the years. The coordinators were also asked to suggest improvements in their job responsibilities. Further, a separate survey was conducted of the state tech-prep staff members to gain their perspectives of the coordinators' responsibilities. The state staff members were asked to identify what they considered the most difficult duty and the easiest, to suggest improvements to strengthen tech prep, and to name the most important contribution of the coordinators. Challenges for Mississippi tech-prep coordinators were identified in areas of reporting, accountability, the increasing number of sites, and professional development.     

真空的性质及描述

本文综述了真空的基本性质，提出了真空的几种描述方法，说明了其意义。     

论大学组织中文化的整合功能

本文论述文化在大学组织整合中的作用。文化是组织中“隐含的规则” ,是组织“正规化的替代物” ,对于主要由专业学术人员组成的大学组织具有特别重要的意义。大学应该加强组织文化建设 ,在无形中协调和控制组织成员的行为 ,促进大学组织目标的实现     

约束多体系统碰撞运动的旋量描述

用旋量描述的Kane方法研究多体系统的碰撞运动，特别是在强加约束下的碰撞运动．     

加强网络环境下高校图书馆利用教育

论述了网络环境新形势下加强高校大学生图书馆利用教育的重要性，提出图书馆利用教育要有步骤，分层次地逐步开展，并能够贯彻于大学生大学教育的全过程，阐明了图书馆利用教育是素质教育的一个重要环节和组成部分。