Implications of the Golden Rule Settlement for Test Construction

The authors present the results of an application of Golden Rule procedures to items of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Using item response theory, their analyses indicate that the Golden Rule procedures are ineffective in detecting biased items and may undermine the reliability and validity of tests.     

School-based mutual support groups for low-income parents

School-based mutual support groups (MSGs) are proposed to enhance the school involvement of parents from lower socioeconomic and ethnic minority backgrounds. We present a school-based MSG format, findings from a survey regarding parent interest, and discussion of a pilot demonstration implemented in three urban elementary schools.     

Make Your Own Engineers

Can ability and exceptional experience be accepted as substitutes for formal education in engineering? This article tells how one company developed a program of qualifications and examinations through which its more talented technicians can achieve full engineer status. The program gives the aspiring technician a continuing incentive for work towards an advanced status that is accepted without reservation by every degree engineer in the company.     

Developing and managing individualized studies programs: Some guidelines

This paper presents eight guidelines that educators should follow in developing and managing undergraduate individualized studies (contract learning-type) programs. The guidelines fall under the headings (1) supplying rationales, (2) focusing on the faculty, (3) assessing faculty performance, (4) assessing student readiness, (5) assessing the costs, (6) students as researchers, (7) how much academic credit, and (8) agents of change. A main theme presented is that the student-centered focus in individualized studies programs needs to be matched by an equal regard for the faculty member.     

Predicting tertiary academic performance in terms of student cognitive and non-cognitive variables

Conclusion The ability to achieve such good predictions suggests that there are subject-independent replicable endemic relationships amongst the variables in question. Further successful attempts at prediction across populations of Biology students, across disciplines, and across types of institutions of higher education would further strengthen the validity of this hypothesis underlying academic performance in higher education.