This monograph consists of a paper outlining current trends in education and discussing issues related to the dissemination of knowledge, and a selected ERIC bibliography on this subject. Trends highlighted in the paper include: (1) the expansion of information; (2) the increasing pace of specialization; (3) the tendency of groups interested in…

School counselors must wade through many unconnected lists of interventions to plan the career guidance aspect of their work. Often this impedes their ability to think strategically about their career development efforts. This digest describes an attempt to discover the underlying taxonomic structure of career development interventions that occur…

This digest describes datasets of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) that are related to rural education, discusses potential uses of NCES data, and offers practical tips for accessing these data. NCES has primarily two types of data; population data on the school universe and national surveys. Two population databases are the…

Several projects were undertaken in 1986 for the purpose of maintaining and improving the ERIC system. This report focuses on one of the projects that involved two surveys of users of the ERIC system and its products. Survey I consisted of a stratified sample of 500 ERIC Standing Order Customers (SOCs). These sites subscribe to the ERIC microfiche…

The booklet focuses on the use of the logical inductive strategy to teach problem solving skills to mildly retarded learners. An introductory section examines three research studies on interventions in the area of problem solving with the retarded learner and concludes, among other things, that mainstreaming has underscored the need for this…

Information literacy is the ability to access, evaluate, and use information from a variety of sources. This document traces the history of the development of the term "information literacy" and discusses the emergence of information literacy as an important concept in contemporary society. Two major events are examined that have driven…

Information literacy, or the ability to seek and effectively utilize information resources, has become a critical tool in the Information Age. Community colleges, as gateways to higher education, have an important role in equipping students with this ability to access and utilize information. The increasing importance of information skills has…

Schools are realizing that carefully collected and analyzed data represent the key to educational improvement. This digest outlines the most useful types of data to drive the school-improvement process, steps that must be taken to collect and analyze data, the role of administrators in guiding the data-driven reform process, and results that can…

This compilation of three papers investigates theoretical and practical facets of career development, focusing on cognitive theory and decision-making theory and their roles in the formation of computerized career development systems. In the first paper ("Cognitive-Behavioral Theory and Its Application to Career Development"), Gerald…

Approximately 15% (7.6 million) of the estimated 50.6 million U.S. citizens who browse the World Wide Web are aged 50 or older, and 30% of adults aged 55-75 own a computer. Although many older adults initially log on to the Internet as a means of connecting with friends and family, they quickly learn that it is also a valuable source of…

This Digest discusses computer assisted advisory practices currently in use in community colleges, outlining the types of data collected and how they are used, including the use of tracking to plan interventions for at-risk students. Enhanced computer technology has improved the effectiveness of academic advising by enabling more thorough and…

The "ERIC Review" announces research results, publications, and new programs relevant to each issue's theme topic. This double issue commemorates ERIC's 30th anniversary and focuses on the dissemination and use of education information. The issue includes "A Quick Guide To ERIC" (Lynn Smarte)--a reproducible training guide for…

The ERIC Clearinghouse on Teacher Education and the Lincoln, Nebraska, Public School System undertook a cooperative project to raise teachers' awareness and use of the ERIC data bases. The report describes project background and planning, project execution, and evaluation. Suggestions for future replication are also provided. Appendices provide a…

To assist career education and career development practitioners in helping students use occupational information, this Practitioner File begins by discussing the role of occupational information in career decision making. The next section addresses considerations and concerns in using online information such as user proficiency, quality of…

Emerging research findings demonstrate a relationship between learning styles and approaches to using the World Wide Web and other hypermedia, especially in terms of success with information retrieval. One of the most widely used conceptions of learning styles is Witkin's Field Dependence (FD)/Field Independence (FI). FI individuals perceive…