Discusses concerns at the Arizona State University library regarding inappropriate uses of their public workstations, including Web surfing, personal email, and accessing pornography. Describe data collection techniques, including observation and electronic data collection software, which investigated use and availability data for workstations.…

Examines whether negotiation addresses the need of second- language (L2) learners to focus attention on L2 form. The study analyzed the utterances of negotiation produced as 20 English native speaker-nonnative speaker (NS-NNS) dyads engaged in communication tasks. Negotiation assisted the NNS needs for data on features that were possible in the…

Examines the generalizability of claims about the implicit learning of artificial grammars to the context of adult second-language acquisition (SLA). Specifically addressed are claims that implicit learning is more effective than explicit learning when the stimulus domain is complex, and explicit learning of simple and complex stimulus domains is…

Deliberations about social policy often center on estimates of harm or benefit generated by different interest groups. Problems in what is measured and how it is measured are illustrated by a discussion of research into sexual abuse and rape. Advocacy research is an unreliable foundation for social policy formation. (SLD)

Focuses on the implementation and development of a pioneering action research project in a Sino-British English program. The article describes the project's goal to introduce the notion of action research into China, to encourage reflective teaching and classroom research among trainee teachers, and to bridge the theories studied with classroom…

Maintains that introductory sociology courses rely on a preponderance of jargon that obfuscates the nature of the discipline. Advocates communicating the nature of sociology by emphasizing its three main approaches: structural, systematic, and critical. Suggests that religious affiliation and economic status influence ability to think…

Discusses the use of computers in qualitative research, including sources of information; collaboration; electronic discussion groups; Web sites; Internet search engines; electronic sources of data; data collection; communicating research results; desktop publishing; hypermedia and multimedia documents; electronic publishing; holistic and…

This year's winners of the U.S. Department of Education's Model Professional Development Awards exemplify schools and districts where everyone's job is to learn. In these models, time and resources are spent on teacher-run institutes, data analysis and collection, peer coaching, curriculum writing, collaborative lesson planning, examining student…

As there have been few science-based evaluations of secondary prevention programs, the Federal Office of Public Health in Switzerland carried out a national program evaluation at 12 sites in the French- and German-speaking parts of Switzerland to study the question, "What works in secondary prevention?" These 12 centers offer different…

Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) represent a diverse group of different ethnicities and cultures. This study examines how national data on race and ethnicity are reported and describes the characteristics of AAPIs in light of the "model minority" myth. In addition, this study examines a definition of Asian American and…

There are various school administrator organizations that are called for redefinition of educational leadership, improved field experiences, greater relevance to K-12 education, and a redesign of curricula to reflect modern content, and to name a few of their proposals. Here, Whitaker presents a summary of data collected over four years from three…

Teachers have incorporated active-learning techniques into the sociology classroom for many years, but the types of applications and evaluations are quite varied. In this paper, the authors quantitatively test a particular form of active learning that they call "living-data exercises," which instructors can use to introduce sociological research…

This article describes a protocol that was effective in collecting media-use pattern and sensitive health data from young adolescents. Students from three public school districts in the southeastern United States were recruited to participate in a study of the impact of the media on adolescents' sexual health. Using a 34-page mailed survey,…

How to involve families in the formal education of their children is a question researchers and educators have been trying to answer since the first bricks were laid for the nation's public education system. A solution must be found, for family involvement has been proven to be associated with a myriad of stellar outcomes, including greater…

A growing number of educators and policymakers have begun focusing on the goal of preparing all or nearly all high school students for college and other advanced postsecondary learning opportunities. To meet this goal, states are adopting policies to encourage nearly all students, not just those seeking entry into competitive four-year colleges,…