Issues and topics related to educational challenges in toxicology at all levels are discussed. They include public awareness and understanding, general approach to toxicology, quality structure-activity relationships, epidemiological studies, quantification of risk, and the types of toxicants studied. (JN)

This paper addresses questions raised about the validity of facilitated communication with autistic individuals and others having severe disabilities and offers examples from the authors' program to support the validity of facilitated communication. Published studies showing a high rate of unfounded claims of abuse under facilitated communication…

This paper reviews four currently recognized modes of inquiry available to reading researchers, including both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The paper discusses empiricism, interpretive research, critical science/theory, and action research, briefly describing the purposes, goals, and assumptions underlying each mode of inquiry. The…

Short-term studies often do not capture the full story of the effect that a researcher is trying to describe. If one wishes to elucidate long-term educational processes and outcomes, the only direct way of doing so is to stretch the duration of research projects and to study the same subjects over time. The limited availability of valid…

The Hawthorne and placebo effects in educational experiments were examined over a 20-year period, as reported in the ERIC, Dissertation Abstracts International, and Psych Info data bases. The literature searches identified 325 studies in education employing the relevant control procedures, and each study was coded for the type of placebo…

This paper explores six phases of a research project designed specifically to engage high school students as co-researchers in a multisite qualitative study exploring perceptions of tobacco use among high school students in four schools. It describes how university researchers collaborated with the high school students and summarizes seven major…

Ethnographers find themselves among a family of researchers referred to as naturalists. This rather diverse family conducts research described by turns as qualitative, participant observational, case study, symbolic interactionist, phenomenological, constructivist, and interpretive. The focus of the ethnographer's inquiry is on the mundane,…

Examination of seven refereed journals over a 10-year period (1977-1986) identified 28 papers using single-subject research methodology in studies involving preschool-aged children with handicaps or their families. Five types of single-subject designs were found to be used both alone and in various combinations. Of the 30 research designs…

This booklet is intended to help curriculum development personnel select an appropriate task list verification technique. The first sections of the guide introduce the concept of verification of task lists, provide a rationale for it, and define various terms connected with verification. The following four sections describe and make a case for…

To study the stability of students' writing performances across occasions, four essays were obtained from each of 107 college students. These were scored with an analytic system that counts errors in 18 categories. Score reliability, computed by summing the 18 categories, was .36 for a single essay and .68 for the set of four essays. Score…

The study examined the relationship between performance of 19 severely handicapped students under training conditions and under each of two types of probe conditions: (1) multiple opportunity (the student is given an opportunity to perform every step in a task analysis); and (2) single opportunity (the student is not given the opportunity to…

Action Research begins by identifying goals as perceived in the community; input is sought in neighborhood hearings or by running a series in the local newspaper and inviting response. Once a research group is organized, Action Research continues as a five-stage flexible study plan for practitioner improvement involving turning goals into…

Interest in the application of modern linguistic theory in composition research has faded, possibly because some of the basic principles that inform linguistic study have been misunderstood. For example, a common misconception is that linguists use the term "generate" to mean "produce." However, the purpose of a generative…

Because administrative theory as presently developed does not allow administrative action to be accurately assessed, measuring participant responses to case study problems employing a predetermined, closed set of responses has questionable validity. This study tries to develop an alternative methodology and to test the resulting instrument in an…

When English instructors functioning simultaneously as researchers study the reading and writing processes of their own students, it is important that they fully describe the context within which the study takes place and the effect that the dual instructional/research environment has on the participants, who are, similarly, functioning as both…