Researchers have only recently recognized that assertions by various educators that they have implemented educational innovations do not all mean the same thing or bear the same weight, according to the authors of this report. Efforts made by the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin to…

Experiences in developing and evaluating a parent group program for new parents are related and problems and strategies for future programs supporting new parents are discussed. The Family Development Parenting Groups (FDPGs) developed in Nashville are also described. Meeting in the infant's second or third month for six weekly and then four…

An approach to research that was conceptualized with the idea of replicating one study in dozens of locations simultaneously is described, focusing on two research projects with simultaneous replication. In 1988 researchers in 85 locations collected data in 276 schools as part of the Phi Delta Kappa Study of Schools At Risk. In 1982, data were…

According to researchers Herriott and Gross in their book "The Dynamics of Planned Educational Change," educational innovations fail because administrators (1) fail to diagnose problems correctly, (2) fail to anticipate and resolve implementation problems, (3) adopt an "ad hoc" approach to educational innovation, (4) accept…

When different individuals operating in different contexts implement similar innovations, they approach the various parts of the innovation in different ways. When assessed according to the research procedures used to study innovation implementation at the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin,…

This paper explores the difficulties of extending good, workable educational ideas to entire schools or districts. Two restructured schools that participated in a 4-year collaborative project that involved multi-age primary classrooms, inclusion of special-needs students in regular classrooms, and increasing specificity in assessing student…

Initial difficulties in the process of teaching 6 first-grade teachers to use reciprocal teaching in their classes, and the disappointing outcomes of the instruction, led researchers to several conclusions. Researchers realized that the beliefs teachers held about the nature of knowledge and the process of knowledge acquisition had a powerful role…

The site variability issue for Direct Instruction Follow Through sites is examined from a variety of perspectives--meta-analysis of the Abt Associates' data, norm-referenced comparisons, and a longitudinal look at stability of effects. Much of the seemingly unexplained variability found in both the Abt report and the reports by M. Kennedy and E.…

This document presents an attempt to evaluate the benefits of Movement Plus, a program of physical recreation for elderly persons, designed to address the social, biological, and psychological dimensions of aging. The setting for the evaluation is described as a home for the aged which housed 96 elderly women. Research problems involved in…

Because the use of tobacco contributes to a large number of deaths each year in the United States, a current research project at the University of Iowa tests the application of a number of theoretical ideas--including social bonding, diffusion, and the spiral of silence--and attempts to develop new ideas in an effort to reduce smoking. The…

JOBS (Job Opportunities in the Business Sector) participation data from federal reports for December 1990 were reviewed for 9 of the 10 states of the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee). Kentucky information was not available at the time of review. Although federal…

Issues that arose in attempting to survey people with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) are described. Questions of confidentiality, nonimplementation, and slow accrual of information are considered for an initial sample of 2,731 cases. Comparison with a database concerning 1,313 clinic clients indicates overrepresentation of compliant…

JOBS (Job Opportunities in the Business Sector) implementation faces major challenges in every state, but two issues are of particular importance in the South: the impact of low welfare benefits and the impact of low educational levels among Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients. The impact of low welfare benefits shows up…

An evaluation was made of PACE (Parent and Child Education), a family literacy program initiated in Kentucky in 1986. PACE was created because of the widespread belief that the state has a serious problem with undereducation of its adult population and the belief also that this problem is the result of persistent patterns of educational failure…

The movement toward integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods within the same study has been most evident in social policy research. Four major approaches to integrating can be identified in recent studies. The sequential, the parallel, and the fused models have been rather widely used. The interactive model, developed during…