Perspectives on educational research are presented, and articles are included that reflect research projects that were undertaken at the Institute for Educational Research (IER) of the Human Services Research Council of the Republic of South Africa (RSA). Articles in this collection include: (1) "Educational Research in the RSA: Trends and…

A portable minicomputer collected data about elementary and secondary social studies teachers' oral questions and the subsequent verbal behaviors of the teachers and the students. Data indicated that literal types of questions were posed most often by teachers at the rate of l.5 per minute, and the duration of the students' answers was associated…

Since May 1980, participants in the Early Adolescent Project at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York have studied the early adolescent as a learner in a series of colloquia, discussions, and observations. The purpose of the study has been to develop recommendations for schooling of the early adolescent and for continuing and…

The eight chapters in this book relate the experiences and reflections of six researchers/teachers who set out to teach five students who had failed to acquire a useful degree of literacy. The book also provides a great deal of information about many of the central topics of teaching literacy: children's motivation, the influence of social and…

An ethnographic study of kindergarten through grade two classrooms was conducted of various sociolinguistic contexts in which young students were developing oral and written language competencies. Nonparticipant observations were conducted in both regular classrooms and Chapter I small group classroom settings. The observations were analyzed from…

This report was part of the total scope of The Microcomputers and Middle School Problem Solving project. It employed representational models during problem solving in order to study: (1) observable patterns in self-directed use of representational models; (2) correlations between use of models and problem-solving ability; and (3) the motives of…

The general aim of this article is to explore South Asian music and culture in an educational context. The fieldwork on which it is based mainly consists of semi-structured interviews with pupils of South Asian origin (aged 11-18) who attend a secondary school in Ilford, Essex. The learning methods of South Asian musicians are considered and a…

The conference reported here addressed the differences in learning writing among students who do not speak standard American English. In "Introduction to Black English," Robert Berdan notes the variability of Black dialect. Maryellen Garcia discusses the range of language abilities inherent in "Spanish-English Bilingualism in the…

A training experiment was made with 40 bilingual/bicultural preservice teachers that compared the effectiveness of two teaching strategies. The students were taught using a self-instructional (field-independent) approach or a cooperative (field-sensitive) approach. At the same time, both groups were learning to combine field-sensitive and field…

A summary of an extensive literature survey deals with the variables known or suspected to affect the retention of learned motor behaviors over lengthy no-practice intervals. Emphasis was given to research conducted by or for the military. The variables that may affect the retention of motor skills were dichotomized into task variables and…

Research linking teaching behavior to student learning is reviewed in this study. Precis of findings of research over a period of 25 years are presented with an analysis of trends of both research methodology and teaching methods. (JD)

Prereading assessment was first used to predict school readiness and was an assessment of the child's visual and oral vocabulary skills. By the 1970s, readiness assessment had changed from assessment of a child's developmental probability for success or failure in reading to an assessment of the child's skill development in relation to the reading…

This monograph presents a compilation of research in industrial arts education from 1968 through 1979. The first section reviews studies which deal with the philosophical bases of industrial arts and which examine its historical development. The second section identifies studies that emphasized industrial arts' role as an integral component of a…

The cognitive preferences of 250 seventh grade students in social studies classes were examined, using the Cognitive Preference Profile (CPP). Each item in the CPP contains a stem statement and restatements of the stem that reflect memory, application, and questioning options. Pre- and post-test scores for the CPP were used as covariates with the…

The paper focuses on the impact of mass media, especially television, on the educational process and outlines implications for the future. Studies point out that children view an average of 8,000 hours of television annually between ages three and five. Positive effects include increase in the vocabulary of young children, a better appreciation of…