Character education specialists seem to know it when they see it, but what it means to call something a character education program remains unclear. One possible source for this uncertainty is the manner in which character education has been defined. By identifying certain features as necessary, existing definitions fail to encompass the universe…

The purpose of this article is to help education practitioners and researchers understand that research about rural education is complicated not only by issues of defining "rural," but also by the often dramatic ways that rural schools differ from each other. We briefly address issues in defining rural and describe rural classification…

Lissitz and Samuelsen (2007) have proposed an operational definition of "validity" that shifts many of the questions traditionally considered under validity to a separate category associated with the utility of test use. Operational definitions support inferences about how well people perform some kind of task or how they respond to some kind of…

Federal standards established in 1997 allow respondents to select multiple-race categories. These new standards changed the single-race subgroup definitions that the government has required since 1977. Meta-analysis, research on long-term assessment trends, and other research involving historical comparisons must account for the definitional…

When 96 mothers and 46 fathers of 6- or 13-month-old infants independently generated behavioral cues they believed contributed to their perception of their infant's recent easiness/difficultness, few systematic differences were found between easy and difficult infants, 6- and 13-month-olds, males and females, and firstborn and later-born.…

This paper critiques Aumaugher's argument which states that the traditional view of concepts as a class of things with common attributes is an insufficient one, and, instead, offers a counterview, stemming from the work of Wittgenstein, which says that a concept is a term's use in the language. Aumaugher states that concept-terms are not always,…

Describes features of Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2) that make it thesaurus-compatible and a source for thesaurus compilers: facet analysis, terminology source, thesaural relationship source, and updating ease. Problems with using BC2 as a thesaurus source are also considered, and two thesauri based on BC2 are described. (MBR)

Reviews the problems of classifying gaming techniques and suggests a heuristic approach as one solution. Definitions of simulation, models, role, and game and play are discussed to help develop a classification based on a technique called gaming simulation. (Author/LRW)

Explicates a definition and theory of "aboutness" and aboutness analysis developed by text linguist van Dijk; explores implications of text linguistics for bibliographic classification theory; suggests the elements that a theory of the cognitive process of classifying documents needs to encompass; and delineates how people identify…

This discussion of issues of definition and classification of attention deficit disorder (ADD) emphasizes the heterogeneity of the diagnosis, the overlap of ADD with reading disability, and lack of consistency across studies. A systematic classification study is proposed to develop a unitary, empirically derived classification for ADD. (Author/DB)

Analyzes the application of levels of deficits or supports in the classification of mental retardation in published research. Analysis of data from three professional journals indicated that the supports model of classification has had no significant impact in subject descriptions reported in mental-retardation research. Implications for teacher…

Examines the use of different terms in chemistry. Addresses the use of imprecise, uninformative, inappropriate, and wrong terms, as well as the lack of clarity in imprecise or uninformative names for methods of chemical analysis. Provides lists of examples of both types of terminology problems. (TW)

The field of learning disabilities (LD) needs to focus on four issues concerned with research and practice: (1) differentiation of LD from other problems, (2) identification of LD subgroups, (3) effects of specific interventions with specific subgroups, and (4) recognition of social/cultural influences on LD identification and services. (Author/DB)

The survey of state department of special education guidelines for mental retardation terminology, eligibility criteria, and classification schemes indicated lack of uniformity among the states, increasing recognition of the importance of adaptive behavior, and decreasing use of the four-level classification system of the American Association of…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to an understanding of how errors could be employed in mathematics instruction so that the students use them constructively in support of their learning of mathematics. A teaching experiment was designed to create an ideal context in which the pedagogical approach to errors as springboards could be…