A needs assessment of the Grumman E-Beam Systems Group identified the requirement for additional skill mastery for the engineers who assemble, integrate, and maintain devices used to manufacture integrated circuits. Further analysis of the tasks involved led to the decision to develop interactive videodisc, computer-based job aids to enable…

To what extent and in what ways do issues about content and the teaching and learning of content figure in the conversations between novices and their mentors? This paper explores that question by means of four cases drawn from a large data set about two different first-year teacher programs, an induction program sponsored by a university and a…

This report describes instructional uses of computers, interactive videodisks, and related technologies in undergraduate and graduate nursing education and in continuing education and faculty development. Its principal aims are to document ongoing activities, to identify factors that inhibit technological applications in nursing education, and to…

Oral communication across the curriculum programs initiated at universities and colleges are likely to experience several problems, including high costs and heavy workloads for faculty. An Oral Communication Program (OCP) designed to overcome potential problems was instituted at Radford University, Virginia. Results of the program's first year…

A brief discussion of the need to define social studies is followed by methods for developing selection criteria for microcomputer programs in the social studies, a model for lesson development on a microcomputer, and evaluation criteria. The need for educators to carefully state what should be learned is emphasized in terms of controlling the…

A study was conducted to answer several research questions involving: (1) decision models used by teachers; (2) nature of preactive and interactive decisions made by teachers; (3) what governs teachers' decisions; (4) interaction between teachers' decision making and the need to maintain activity flow; (5) how teachers establish a "learning…

To assist managers of complex training systems in making decisions that result in changes in the existing training syllabus, this study provides a model for estimating and comparing the costs of training system components and of potential changes to the components. In the first part of the study, this assessment model is broken down into five…

This paper makes a distinction between the formative evaluation that can be carried out in the early stages of the development of educational television programs, i.e., from the emergence of the idea through the development of a script, and those that have to be executed in the later stages of development, i.e., during the production process. The…

College summer institutes should be allowed to coach high school debaters on the current high school debate topic. Every individual forensic practice must be viewed as part of a dynamic process, the totality of which ought to be assessed for its competitive and educational balances. The activity of debate becomes endangered not when students allow…

A three phase study evaluated the comparative effectiveness of various features that comprise a postsecondary writing program. The first phase of the study examined the college composition programs on the 19 California State University (CSU) campuses to identify and describe distinctive program features. The second and third phases measured both…

Current issues in educational communications and technology are addressed in this collection of 48 papers, in which research reports predominate. Topics discussed include factors related to the learner, e.g., field dependence/independence, learning strategies, information processing, spatial ability, cognitive style, and cognitive strategies.…

Instructional Accomplishment Information (IAI) Systems data bases provide the opportunity for new and powerful studies relevant to educational policy issues at a local and/or national level. This report discusses the methodology for "schooling policy studies." The procedures are illustrated using a yet-to-be-completed analysis of the Los…

Assessment and decision-making practices of a national sample of 60 teachers serving handicapped preschool children were examined. Teachers were surveyed regarding the assessment information they and other professionals collect on their students and how they use it in educational programming. It was found that teachers used behavioral observations…

This paper examines the changing instructional role of the high school librarian from 1951 to 1984 to determine: (1) if the purported changes in the instructional role have been fictional or factual; (2) if the changes were those of substance or of form; (3) if the changes represented a process of growth and development in direct relationship to…

Specially designed for teenagers, this experience-based training program of five units provides information about working with young children and is the learner's counterpart of a separate set of materials designed for leaders working with the teens. Units of instruction concern working in a team, observing the world of the child, facilitating the…