Reports, summaries, and recommendations are presented on the following research studies: (1) Beginning Teacher Studies; (2) Instructional Skills for Teaching Higher Order Thinking; (3) Development of the Conferential Observation Instrument; (4) Predictive Validity Studies Conducted to Test the Relationship Between Teacher Performance as Measured…

Intended as an aid to researchers who must decide which measurement techniques to use in the study of organizational communication, this paper describes and analyzes three of the most widely used data collection instruments: the Communication Audit Survey Questionnaire (CAS), the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ), and the…

The origins of institutional research and its association with a planning function are reviewed. The role of values, politics, and social pressures in regard to the planning function are examined. Planning is likely to be more directed to attaining administrative and faculty aspirations than to meeting educational and social needs. (Author/MLW)

Qualitative research is based on the direct observation of human activity and interaction in an ongoing, naturalistic fashion. Qualitative researchers are concerned with the internal life of schools; what is really occurring in classrooms, corridors, cafeterias, and playgrounds. Qualitative researchers look at what people ordinarily take for…

This literature review discusses the need for rehabilitation organizations to become culturally competent and for rehabilitation research to reach and be utilized by minority populations. Sections address the incidence of disability in minority populations, the socially constructed nature of race, culture, and disability, cultural power and the…

The teaching profession's present notion of the ability of teachers to contribute to theory development in language education needs reexamination. University researchers can best foster this ability by encouraging and assisting teachers to become engaged in classroom research. On the basis of both published evidence and field data, it can be…

This study aimed to describe, compare, and analyze the use of specific types of data utilized in decision-making by administrators of more and less effective community colleges. The study utilized a modified version of Kim Cameron's "Assessment of Organizational Effectiveness on Higher Education" to measure and rank community college…

This is the fifth in a series of issue briefs to be written for The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement during 2006. In this brief, author Craig Jerald highlights research collected in the July 2005 special issue of the "Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk" to argue for collecting and using data to…

The Center for Educational Research and Evaluation of the University of North Carolina (Greensboro) has been contracted to propose standards, indicators of quality, data collection procedures, and instruments for the evaluation of Georgia public schools mandated by the state legislature. The development of these standards and indicators is…

The objectives of the state-of-the-art paper, second in a series on farming systems research (FSR) in the Third World, are to: (1) review the literature on farming systems; (2) evaluate farming systems research in international institutes and in national agricultural research systems in the Third World; and (3) recommend what can be done to…

This report updates the National Strategic Research Plan of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and reports progress made from 1991 through 1993 as required by the National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-553) which established the Institute. An executive summary…

Reflecting a convergence of public policy and scientific interest in the role of fathers in families, and recognizing the crucial need to examine the demographic and social processes bringing men into fathering roles and influencing their role enactment, this report summarizes presentations and recommendations of the Conference on Fathering and…

Ways that higher education institutions can improve their compliance procedures in responding to external requests for reports and information are addressed. Institutional officers must first determine how the data will be used by the external agency. By questioning how the requested information will be used, a determination can be made of what…