A High-School Science Teacher Views Industry-Education Cooperation

Teachers actively engaged in the classroom do not agree that today's science education is a failure. Schools are expressions of our culture, and their deficiencies have much deeper roots than most current analyses recognize. Fundamental rather than superficial remedies are indicated. Industry, in its approach to education must recognize the central importance of the teacher himself as an expert in the job to be done, and try to adjust its efforts to the special conditions of the classroom. Certain of the steps now being taken by industry in the field of secondary education are noted, and suggestions for their improvement are offered. It is necessary to put intellectual interests in a favorable competitive position with respect to more glamorous teen-age activities, and a possible action in this direction is suggested. Improvement of the economic and social status of the teaching profession would be the single most powerful development in bringing about better secondary education.     

A Reaction to Mehrens's NCME Presidential Address

As a state level measurement specialist, Tom notes that some psychometricians always have a list of reasons test data cannot be used to enhance the quality of educational decisions. He welcomes Bill's exhortation to be hope-oriented and calls on measurement specialists to provide decision makers with practical, understandable ways to best use test data.     

Developmental factors influencing exceptional status at age six years

A multivariate analysis of exceptional states in 384 children aged 6 years is presented. Predictors were six items of information in the domain of child development, four items were in the domain of social factors, and three items were maternal traits. Criteria were six of nine exceptional states on which there were enough cases for multivariate analysis. The AID-4 interaction regression method was the technique of analysis applied to data gathered by prospective longitudinal study. No consistent sets of predictors were found for the criteria. However, Coddington's Life Changes scores were frequently observed as prime sources of variance. Social class scores were also important influences on criteria of exceptionality.     

Differences in teachers' perceptions of personal control of positive versus negative student learning outcomes

Past research on teachers' causal attributions has shown there to be little relation between perceptions of responsibility for positive versus negative student learning outcomes. In this study, Weiner's model for causal attributions was employed to explore these perceived attributional differences. Data were gathered from 184 teachers from two metropolitan school districts. Statistically significant differences between attributions for positive versus negative outcomes were identified along the dimensions of both internality/externality and stability of cause. Relations to overall efficacy, teaching experience, grade level taught, and teacher gender were also explored; however, only grade level differences were found to be statistically significant.