Arguing that retention research requires a sound theoretical framework and that retention planning takes place within a sociopolitical context, this paper presents an overview of the requirements and process of student retention research. Part I examines the role of research in a college's retention effort and establishes the general requirements…

This report focuses on the state-supported Undergraduate Writing Program at Illinois State University (ISU). Several innovations have contributed to the expansion and improvement of ISU's Undergraduate Writing Program, whose key components are: the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program in the College of Arts and Sciences; the use of microcomputers…

The Community Action Volunteers in Education (CAVE), which is described in this report, is a co-curricular learning, non-profit agency offering over 16 programs to children, the elderly, special populations, and low-income residents in the Chico, California, area and in three state institutions in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Based at California…

Faced with declining enrollments and decreasing resources, institutions of higher education need to consider new ways to conceptualize their purposes and the administrative processes relevant to those purposes. Asserting that the organizational structure of the institution and the learners, educators, and instructional methods interacting in that…

Ideas that have been developed in the decision support systems (DSS) literature that seem particularly relevant to institutional research, planning, and analysis (IRPA) are reviewed. In addition, a survey of practitioners in Canadian universities that provides new information on the rapidly changing current state of information technology,…

The 11 processes and models, developed between 1979-82 for use by local migrant education projects, include guidelines for assessing the project's needs for external resources in all program areas and for conducting an inventory of the materials and equipment needs. A process for analyzing staffing is followed by tips for hiring bilingual staff. A…

Included in this booklet are nine papers reflecting the social work profession's engagement in the effort to deal with a variety of problems experienced by families and cultural minorities. Covered by individual papers are the following topics: (1) prevention of the troubled marital relationships that are sometimes brought on by the birth of the…

This paper synthesizes some of the many ideas and issues pertaining to research on the development of writing skills, and on creating new technologies for writing. Such technologies include computer-based production tools, videodiscs, and other mass storage technologies with potential for knowledge storing and structuring. The discussion also…

Remote access to resources has become increasingly important in academic libraries, spurred largely by the growth of online education. Through bibliographic instruction (BI) courses, librarians must prepare both on-site and remote patrons in information literacy. Challenges exist for remote-user BI: among them are perceived characteristics of the…

In the course of carrying out the technical tasks of the school, teachers encounter common problems that do not impose on those in managerial roles. School organizations are typically structured in such a way as to prevent the information sharing and processing necessary to confront these problems. A collective decision-making structure for…

The author presents a model for inservice teacher training entitled the Process Oriented In-Service Experience (POISE) and attempts to identify changes occurring in the process movement and dynamics of interaction as reflected in attitudes and behaviors of teachers participating in this modified, small-group, process learning experience under…

A model for a television consortium for Connecticut regional community colleges is presented. A successful consortium involves commitment to the purpose of providing access to higher education for nontraditional students, willingness of program developers and administrators to listen to and work with people having divergent viewpoints, adequate…

Although the development of new models is essential to the improvement of teacher preparation programs, the California system of accreditation of teacher education programs seems to hinder innovative program development and evaluation. External assessment in California is based on a discrepancy model which works best when applied to static…

Presented are variables and conditions for design of a computer-based adaptive instructional system. The design strategy uses Bayes' theory of conditional probability to determine an instructional sequence according to individual student characteristics and needs. The adaptive strategy uses prior estimates based on student pretask and on-task…

The rights and responsibilities of deans as persons as they serve as heads of baccalaureate or higher degree programs in nursing are considered by six deans who contributed to a continuing education workshop series. Rheba de Tornyay considers qualities and personal characteristics of effective and less effective leaders, professional image,…