The Technical Quality of Performance Assessments: Standard Errors of Percents of Pupils Reaching Standards

How accurate is the reported percent of students’reaching standards at the school level? How are standard errors for these statistics computed? How do estimates vary with choice of generalizability model?     

Academic libraries and university presses

In recent years university presses have undergone some significant changes, such as expansion of their scope to include materials that may have appeal beyond the scholarly market. This article investigates, through the use of a survey of university libraries, the acquisition of university press products by libraries. In general, recent years have been changes in the relationship between university presses and libraries that have resulted in fewer items being purchased by the libraries.     

Basic skill requirements for selected Army occupational training courses

This study investigated the basic cognitive skills soldiers must possess before entering the Army, skills that are needed for successful completion of entry-level training. Judgments of 126 instructors from 25 military occupational specialties were obtained on 129 candidate skills, which resulted in the identification of 55 basic skills. Factor analysis of these 55 skill items resulted in 11 interpretable factors. Mean scores on the factors were compared across factors and across Army training schools. The results of the study suggest that, for all occupational specialties studied, skills related to the learning process are as crucial as traditional academic skills for successful training course completion. These results have important implications for training for the Army as well as for industry.     

A comparison of the anthropometric, strength, endurance and flexibility characteristics of female elite and recreational climbers and non-climbers.

There is limited information on the anthropometry, strength, endurance and flexibility of female rock climbers. The aim of this study was to compare these characteristics in three groups of females: Group 1 comprised 10 elite climbers aged 31.3 +/- 5.0 years (mean +/- s) who had led to a standard of 'hard very severe'; Group 2 consisted of 10 recreational climbers aged 24.1 +/- 4.0 years who had led to a standard of 'severe'; and Group 3 comprised 10 physically active individuals aged 28.5 +/- 5.0 years who had not previously rock-climbed. The tests included finger strength (grip strength, finger strength measured on climbing-specific apparatus), flexibility, bent arm hang and pull-ups. Regression procedures (analysis of covariance) were used to examine the influence of body mass, leg length, height and age. For finger strength, the elite climbers recorded significantly higher values (P < 0.05) than the recreational climbers and non-climbers (four fingers, right hand: elite 321 +/- 18 N, recreational 251 +/- 14 N, non-climbers 256 +/- 15 N; four fingers, left hand: elite 307 +/- 14 N, recreational 248 +/- 12 N, non-climbers 243 +/- 11 N). For grip strength of the right hand, the elite climbers recorded significantly higher values than the recreational climbers only (elite 338 +/- 12 N, recreational 289 +/- 10 N, non-climbers 307 +/- 11 N). The results suggest that elite climbers have greater finger strength than recreational climbers and non-climbers.     

Summary of an Extended Comparative Analysis on European Private Higher Education1

In November 2005, UNESCO‐CEPES organized a conference on Private Higher Education in Europe and Quality Assurance and Accreditation from the Perspective of the Bologna Process Objectives. Thirteen country reports and a comparative analysis study were commissioned for this specific initiative. The countries included in the project were: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the Ukraine. This article provides a brief summary of several main points of the comparative analysis study. The data referred to in this summary is taken solely from the sources cited in the full text study.