Effective school leadership is key to students' academic success. But the development of effective school leadership has been seriously hampered by the lack of technically sound tools to assess and monitor leaders' performance. This article presents the research base and conceptual framework for a leadership assessment instrument under…

Research in the development of teacher cognition and teaching performance in K-12 classrooms has identified consistent challenges and patterns of behavior that are congruent with the predictions of dual-process models of cognition. However, cognitive models of information processing are not often used to synthesize these results. This article…

Beginning teachers' experience in the school organization is related to increased bureaucratic orientation and decreased professional orientation. (Author)

This paper examines the career patterns of educational administrators in order to identify socialization processes and consequences in public school systems. Section 1 presents a review of the literature dealing with school career socialization, including studies of the career patterns of both teachers and administrators; section 2 examines…

Reports findings of study that examined the ways in which third, sixth, and ninth grade students made meaning when they were involved in reading and writing activities. (FL)

The purpose of the present study was to compare the scores of disruptive and nondisruptive middle school students (grades five through eight) on professed and inferred academic self concept. The Florida Key and the school-academic subscore of the Coopersmith Self Esteem Inventory were used to obtain scores on a population of 3,254 students…

When self-administered surveys or questionnaires are administered, there is often a question of whether respondents have attended to the items in a thoughtful manner. This paper examines the results of three different surveys to investigate the occurrence of nonattending behaviors such as missing items, patterns that indicate lack of…

Following a review of research findings on the relationship between teacher behavior and student achievement, current activities in teacher effectiveness research are discussed. Two major trends emerge in recent research studies. Existing correlational findings on the topic are being integrated and applied to contexts beyond basic skills…

Results showed a number of significant developmental changes in students' nonverbal communication as perceived by teachers. (PD)

The author discusses the substantive and methodological contributions which several disciplines can make to naturalistic research in the field of special education and raises definitional issues. (Author)

To shift educational research's focus from the rigorous study of individuals to whole learning environments, a systemic view of the classroom is proposed, with a list of seven generic components of the classroom environment. L. Guttman's Small Space Analysis is used, and a science teaching project illustrates the discussion. (SLD)

Reviews research on norms of behavior toward male and female students that newly certified teachers bring to their classrooms, and explores ways teacher educators can provide alternatives to gender bias. There are no simple strategies for preservice teachers to learn, but research can help teacher educators work toward gender fairness. (SLD)

This first issue of the new "Pacific Educational Research Journal" offers articles covering diverse subjects and using diverse research methods. The new journal represents a rejuvenation of a previous publication to address educational issues specific to the Pacific region. Ethnic groups specifically addressed include Hawaiians,…

This report is an overview of recent research on the effects of class size on the academic performance and behavior of students at risk. In several ways it is not a conventional literature review. It emphasizes one recent large-scale investigation, Tennessee's Project STAR (Student-Teacher-Achievement-Ratio), begun in 1985. It is more evaluative…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between a certain characteristic in the personality of the school principal and his administrative behavior, with the ultimate dependent variable being decentralization of decisionmaking. The focus was on the relationships between dogmatism, Xness of administrative style, autonomy…