This issues of Communique, a newsletter providing resource information for practicing counselors, features a decisional "balance sheet", to aid students who are thinking about college in making sound, stable decisions that involve careful scanning of all the relevant considerations; reports of three studies in curriculum decision making…

Three studies were carried out to explore and evaluate alternative methods of meeting the objectives of a bilingual education project. The first study explored children's book usage behaviors and how these behaviors were influenced by the requirement to fill out book reports and a reward reinforcement. It was found (1) that fewer children sampled…

Externality (sense of powerlessness), as measured by Rotter's (1966) I-E scale, has been theoretically and empirically associated with low socioeconomic status and a history of insufficient reward. Recently, however, externality among white college students has been increasing. The present study sought to demonstrate the relationship of…

Three empirical dimensions of curriculum structure are presented in this study of the differences among subject areas in student perception of cognitive and affective classroom processes. Class Activities Questionnaire items were used to obtain data from 121 Illinois classes in science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts for grades…

The general needs assessment instrument can provide the means for a school district to assess its needs relative to the Ten Goals of Quality Education. It is comprised of 63 area behavior statements taken from the category schemes. The student must check the appropriate number for each statement representing "always" through…

The general needs assessment instrument can provide the means for a school district to assess its needs relative to the Ten Goals of Quality Education. It is comprised of 63 area behavior statements, which encompass the 10 goals, and a 5-point rating scale (most important-least important) for each. The individual needs assessment instrument is…

This paper summarizes results of an ecological analysis designed to generate hypotheses concerning processes involved in learning to meet the demands of the classroom environment. Ethnographic data on student teachers indicates that classrooms are characterized by multidimensionality, simultaneity, and unpredictability. Teachers, in turn,…

In a study to evaluate various factors affecting food waste in the school lunch program, data were collected from grades 1-6 in four districts, using three schools from each district on three consecutive days. The average number of participants per school was 384. More than 13,824 individual sets of data were collected. Thirty-six menus were…

Little reliable evidence exists, but observers agree that much student-perpetrated violence and disruption is caused by school policy, school procedures, and various types of habitual behavior that distinguish different schools. Focusing remedial efforts on those attributes of schools that precipitate deviant or delinquent behavior is both more…

This paper describes the prison education program established by Hagerstown Junior College (HJC) at the Maryland Correctional Training Center (MCTC). Although the first courses were offered at MCTC in 1969, it was not until late 1969 that cooperatively prepared guidelines were adopted by HJC and MCTC. An inmate screening committee, on which both…

The article describes ways in which college supervising teachers can evaluate student teachers' classroom performance by watching videotapes of their classes. (CD)

Recognition of some of the variations in educational backgrounds and life-styles of foreign stduents--particularly those from developing nations--could ease the communication difficulties they face when studying in American universities. Observations of language problems, counseling problems, class behavior, and social customs are offered. (JMD)

The following themes integrate the collection of papers presented in this issue: ethnographic approaches; the importance of the teacher's role as arbitrator; the necessity to study firsthand the interaction of teachers and students; and the need not to separate the classroom from its larger institutional and social settings. (Author/MC)

Examined implications of research on locus of control and achievement motivation. It is suggested that locus of control and achievement motivation influence ways in which a child approaches school-related tasks, interprets outcomes of tasks, selects tasks, and persists in activities. (Author)