Alan Lesgold - Böcker

The dramatic shift in the American labor market away from manufacturing and the growing gap in earnings between high school and college graduates have contributed to a sense of alarm about the capacity of the nation's schools to supply adequately skilled graduates to the work force. The role that schools can or should play in preparing people to enter the world of work is hotly debated. In an effort to nurture the important and ongoing national dialogue on these issues, the Board on Testing and Assessment asked researchers and policymakers to engage in an interdisciplinary review and discussion of available data and implications for assessment policy. Transitions in Work and Learning considers the role of assessment in facilitating improved labor market transitions and life-long learning of American workers. It addresses the apparent mismatch between skill requirements of high-performance workplaces and skills acquired by students in school, the validity of existing assessment technologies to determine skills and competencies of persons entering various occupations, and ethical and legal issues in the implementation of new testing and certification programs.The book also examines the role of assessment in determining needed skills; developing ongoing education and training; and providing information to employers, prospective workers, and schools.

Learning Issues for Intelligent Tutoring Systems arrays the most current and exciting research in this dynamic and growing area of cognitive science. The various contributions address the design and use of instructional systems as well as the important theoretical and practical questions involved in implementing knowledge-based systems. This book offers complete and up-to-date reviews of the major research programs in computer-aided instruction and intelligent tutoring systems. Learning Issues for Intelligent Tutoring Systems is an important and useful introduction to this rapidly changing field.

An adjunct to the increased emphasis on developing students' critical thinking and higher order skills is the need for methods to monitor and evaluate these abilities. These papers provide insight into current techniques and examine possibilities for the future. The contributors to Diagnostic Monitoring of Skill and Knowledge Acquisition focus on two beliefs: that new kinds of tests and assessment methods are needed; and that instruction and learning can be improved by developing new assessment methods based on work in cognitive science.

Sipke D. Fokkema Amsterdam, Free University From June 13th - 17th, 1977 the NATO International Conference on Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, organized by the editors of this volume, took place at the Free University of Amsterdam. During this period approximately 150 psychologists representing 15 countries assembled for an exchange of scientific experiences and ideas. The broad aim of the conference, as indicated by its title, was to explore the extent to which theoretical and methodological developments in cognitive psychology might provide useful knowledge with regard to the design and management of instruction. From a great variety of submitted papers the organizers attempted to select those that represented major problem areas being scientifically studied in several countries. For the organization of this book we chose to categorize the contributions according to the following general areas: I. Learning II. Comprehension and Information Structure III. Perceptual and Memory Processes in Reading IV. Problem Solving and Components of Intelligence V. Cognitive Development VI. Approaches to Instruction The final paper in the volume is an extensive review and summary by Glaser, Pellegrino, and Lesgold, that examines the state Qf cognitive psychology (mainly as reflected in the contributions in this volume) with regard to instructional purposes. Each of the sections of the book also begins with a brief overview of the specific topics considered by the individual contributors within that section.