Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM) has become an increasingly popular instrument/methodology for reading assessment. In part, its popularity derives from promises of formative assessment (i.e., progress monitoring). However, a review of the literature suggests CBM formative assessment applications may lack the requisite reliability evidence. Furthermore, available research provides support and direction to improve the accuracy and stability of formative assessment outcomes. The primary purpose of this research was to evaluate and compare the effects of a controlled set of reading passages on student performance. Researchers developed a controlled set of Curriculum Like Measurement (CLM) reading passages from a sample of unfamiliar grade-specific reading curriculums. Each grade-specific passage-set was controlled for passage-difficulty using the Spache and Dale-Chall readability formulas. Analysis compared CBM and CLM formative assessment outcomes. A second purpose of this study was to compare short-term (10-week) assessment outcomes with the negatively accelerating developmental trends that have been documented with long-term assessment (i.e., 36-week). Analysis tested for differences in stability of growth-estimates [SE(b)], accuracy of predictions (SEE), and observed growth-rates/slope (b). 99 students in grades second to fifth participated over 10 weeks. Results suggest CLM progress monitoring outcomes are more stable and accurate than CBM. Results did not demonstrate the negatively accelerating curvilinear relationship between grades. Results and implications are discussed.

Children with communication disorders are often at risk of literacy difficulties, especially students that present with autism and/or speech sound disorders. This quasi-experimental study was designed to examine the effects of a 10-week "hybrid" intervention for preschool students with and without communication disorders in an integrated classroom. The classroom intervention targets both vocabulary and phonological awareness, two critical components of literacy that are strongly correlated with one another. The objectives of this study were (1) to provide empirical evidence that classroom-based pre-literacy intervention can be effective for students with communication disabilities, allowing for more time with their peers in a potentially least-restrictive environment and (2) to demonstrate that typically-developing preschool children also benefit from classroom-based pre-literacy training.

Under the auspices of a United Stated Department of Education National Workplace Literacy Program grant, the Columbia-Willamette Skill Builders, a community college consortium, developed a prototype workplace educator training program in 1994. The Skill Builders workplace educator training program was 9 months long and offered 90 hours of instruction, including a 20 to 40 hour workplace field experience. Twenty-six people completed the prototype program. This investigative study posed two research questions: 1. What can we learn by identifying and evaluating the critical elements in a prototype workplace educator training program? 2. What can be gleaned through this investigation that can be utilized to design a workplace educator training program? Workplace educator is a new term emerging from the field of workplace literacy. A workplace educator facilitates basic learning involving language and computation, as well as communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and decision-making. An examination of the pertinent literature identified five fields that impact on workplace education: workplace basics; training and development; workplace literacy and the contextual teaching approaches; current management theory with an emphasis on the high performance work organization; and workplace learning. The critical elements involved in the prototype program were identified through extensive inquiry using questionnaires, survey evaluation instruments, personal interviews, reports, journal review of the participants, and a focus group of Portland, Oregon, area employer representatives managing workplace education. The identified critical elements include an understanding of: (a) education in the workplace; (b) the characteristics of workplace educators; (c) workplace culture and organizational practices; (d) business/ education relationships; (e) the educational environment; (f) needs assessment/evaluation and assessment procedures; (g) workplace program design; (h) how to facilitate learning; (i) the development of communication skills for the workplace educator; (j) culture, class, and gender diversity in the workplace; and (k) appropriate uses of instructional technology. In addition, the data were examined through an evaluation research framework using the Stufflebeam (1983) CIPP (context, input, process, and products) model. The analysis showed that the program was highly satisfactory to the participants. The most important finding in this study is the need for workplace educators to fully understand the workplace. / Graduation date: 1995

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (March 5, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In the teaching and learning of literacy, descriptions of text have a problematic status as a result of the growing understanding of literacy as both a cognitive process and a social practice. In the teaching of academic subjects at university, student text is not usually an object of study. The research in this thesis draws on a language based theory oflearning to place textual description at the centre of the teaching and learning of both literacy and academic subjects at university. Participant observation and practice-based research methods were used to implement a form of text-oriented literacy teaching and to explore its compatibility with processes and practices orientations to literacy. Over an eighteen month period, systemic functional grammar was used to investigate and describe the texts of a film studies classroom and the descriptions were used in genre based literacy pedagogy. The effects of the pedagogy are measured in terms of students' performance in an end of course assignment, students' accounts of their writing processes, and student and subject-tutor perception of the text description and the pedagogy. In the thesis, a linguistic description of a key curriculum genre -a Taxonomic Film Analysis -is presented. An account is given of the pedagogy by means of which this essay genre was represented in the film studies classroom as a realisation of choices from linguistic, conceptual and activity systems. Systemic functional grammar-based text description is seen to have provided a means whereby a literacy tutor could collaborate with a subject tutor to provide a subject-specific form of literacy teaching which was evaluated as relevant by students and tutors. The account and the evaluation help to clarify the role that description of text can play in relation to processes and practices ofliteracy use in the teaching and learning of literacy in a film studies classroom and have implications for the teaching and learning of literacy at university more generally.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2003. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 258-284.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2010. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 117 p. : col. ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-85).

Thesis (PH. D.)--Michigan State University. Educational Psychology & Educational Technology, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Sept. 8, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 126-131). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Teaching and Learning)--Vanderbilt University, Aug. 2007. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Many adult literacy and adult basic education learners struggle with various forms of negative emotions. Self-doubts are often a result of resistance to earlier schooling experiences and how they processed those experiences. Adults need to shed emotions that interfere with progress and develop the self-confidence needed to persist with academic work. There is a need for a strategy to help learners become more self-confident, persistent, and self-directed. The purpose of this study was to develop, pre-test, field-test, post-test, and refine a training program designed to help students move closer to self-directed learning. The data was collected through formative and summative evaluation strategies that revolved around a series of critical dialogues with learners. Findings related to the unlearning process revealed movement by the participants towards several enabling outcomes. These outcomes included unlearning the "blaming-the-victim" mentality; working through the shame issue of returning to school as an adult; resisting the self-fulfilling prophecy that they are incapable of academic work; giving themselves credit for overcoming barriers; and moving towards developing a stronger sense of critical awareness. This study also found that: (1) learners can benefit from reflecting on their earlier schooling experiences and surrounding circumstances; (2) learners want their critical voices heard; and (3) critical reflection and critical pedagogy are important processes in helping learners overcome negative emotions and getting at those voices. In conducting the evaluation, several problems in the design were easily rectified, but others were left unsolved. Empowerment and participatory practices are not easy, and program staff may find some of the results too critical, difficult to deal with, and unpleasant. What characteristics make for a good facilitator? Should a practitioner from the learning center be present during the critical dialogues? The participants not only endorsed the program, but had recommendations for practitioners who might consider participating in a similar program designed specifically for them.