Professionals in nine education specialty areas ranked educational journals by perceived degree of importance. The data were used to analyze degrees of similarity among the areas. Results suggested that education specialty areas are nonoverlapping and noninterdependent and that the field of education is more a mosaic of specialties than a unified…

Critically reviews the preceding article by Lapointe and Koffler. Suggests that many of these authors' recommendations for program improvement need qualification. (GC)

Notes that AERA serves the needs of the fields by maintaining an effective mechanism to bring the documentation of disciplined inquiry in education before the profession and its constituent publics. (Author)

If a researcher tells practitioners that they ought to do certain things, the practitioners in return ought to demand to inspect the researcher's line of argument and pay particular attention to the linking value premise or premises that must exist. (Author)

Presents an overview of teacher preparation and concludes that the distinction between "knowledge" and "pedagogy" is a relatively recent development. Discusses different types of teacher knowledge ("content,""pedagogical content," and "strategic") and forms of knowledge…

Reviews the birth, labor and growing pains, trials and tribulations, and eventual demise of IACTR, conceived in 1968 at a meeting of the American Psychological Association, the general mission of which was to focus on the wider dissemination of test reviews. (Author/JM)

Probes two aspects of scientific communication: (1) the extent to which journal article authors continue work in the same area as their articles; (2) the sources of information used by active researchers in conjunction with their current research. (Author/JM)

The current unified-system view of educational knowledge production and utilization is seen to be inadequate. A reformulation of the conceptual structure on which the program is built must be complete, balanced, and realistic in order to mount programs in education which can command broad-based support. (Author/AM)

Identifies two major problems--first, both the formal and informal communication networks are extremely diffuse; and second, the interval from the start of a piece of research until its integration into the archival body of scientific knowledge is long--and presents some suggestions for alleviating them. (Author/JM)

Describes the creation and objectives of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and reviews the findings of an evaluation of the NAEP, published in "Measuring the Quality of Education," by Wirtz and Lapointe. Focuses on the role that the NAEP can play in establishing uniform, national educational standards. (GC)

Two issues in the Holtzman Project bear examination and reconsideration: (1) the recommendation for the use of field experiments as an exclusive "authorized" evaluation design, and (2) the focus on the needs of the federal client, and the apparent lack of concern for clients at the state and local levels. (GC)

Summarizes a report from Northwestern University that reviewed Federal evaluation practices of federally supported educational programs at the national, state, and local levels. Considers: (1) evaluation purposes and methods; (2) evaluators' capabilities; (3) use of evaluation results; and (4) ways that evaluation procedures/practices can be…

Examines data analysis at three levels: analysis of data; secondary analysis is the re-analysis of data for the purpose of answering the original research question with better statistical techniques, or answering new questions with old data; and, meta-analysis refers to the statistical analysis of many analysis results from individual studies for…

Argues that ignorance is a better criterion than truth for determining the usefulness of knowledge generated through educational research. Implications for conceptualizing and teaching research are discussed, illustrating how attention to ignorance can increase understanding in areas such as practitioner research and cooperative research. (SLD)

Explores the relationship between educational theory and practice by describing the following three categories in an expanded view of scholarly activity in education: (1) studying school improvement programs; (2) creating new ways of taking action on new knowledge; and (3) building new collaborative structures between schools and universities.…