In all of his published work, Jean Piaget never abandoned his original theoretical framework for the understanding of human development. This framework insists that intelligence is essentially a biological phenomenon; its development is best understood as the development of a sophisticated and highly successful adaptation device. This device…

Data from the 1970 National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience are employed to estimate the foregone earnings of college students. An estimation of earnings functions from male and female youths who are not enrolled in school, and the potential earnings of enrollees is derived by substituting the characteristics of enrollees into the…

The first in a 10-volume report, this volume provides an overview of the NETWORK school improvement study as a whole, placing it within the context of federal dissemination-related school improvement policies and programs. Existing research on these programs is examined and synthesized, and the evolution of the federal role in dissemination is…

As part of on-going research on rural public service provision, researchers illustrated the use of a methodologically rigorous tool (a "tradeoff game") for eliciting community preferences for municipal public services. The trade-off game allowed adults in 122 households in Erin Township, Wellington County, Ontario, to assess 13 currently…

The review of science education research for 1982 includes analyses of 455 studies reported in dissertation abstracts, journal articles, research papers, and papers presented at conferences. The organization of the review is topical. Topic areas include: (1) student characteristics and behavior (cognitive development, conceptual understanding,…

Many countries, particularly those in the developing world, are seeking to orient their health services toward a more equitable and efficient utilization of resources. A detailed analysis of the financing of health services is an important step in such an undertaking. This manual sets out a methodology for carrying out such an analysis and…

This paper discusses issues which make it difficult to measure the teaching performance of college faculty. The issues discussed are those which could lead to ethical and legal problems should they be ignored--those issues which are sensitive because personnel decisions are made on the basis of evaluations. Simplistic methods, such as student…

Analyzed in this report is salient research on exemplary schools based on alternative models of identifying exemplary programs by expert judgment or by regression analysis. The conclusion is that characteristics of exemplary schools are remarkably similar regardless of how they are identified, supporting the view that the characteristics are…

Using techniques of inference appraisal suggested by T. A. van Dijk and R. J. Sternberg, a study investigated whether by assigning particular writing tasks it would be possible to influence the way readers produce inferences about a text. Subjects, 52 ninth grade students, read especially prepared booklets and completed either a paraphrasing,…

To obtain practical experience, a research methods class at the University of Colorado (Colorado Springs) undertook a special project to help a nearby county (Park County), assess its planning needs. The county was chosen for its characteristics as a rapidly growing rural area faced with the problems created by mounting population pressure on…

Generalizations arising from effective teaching studies are vulnerable because they are not based on a theoretical perspective of how learning occurs or can be improved, but have resulted from observations of what teachers appear to be doing when students are learning. Critics of teacher effectiveness studies contend that good instruction requires…

A match or mis-match of cooperating teachers and student teachers on personality characteristics may have an important role in the overall effectiveness of the student teaching experience. Among the different personality factors that may affect participant relationships are flexibility, empathy, and self-esteem. To assess the validity of measures…

These proceedings include abstracts and/or complete papers on topics and research focusing on student misconceptions (ideas at variance with accepted views) in science and mathematics. Abstracts and papers are arranged according to nine general areas emphasized: (1) theoretical and philosophical perspectives; (2) instructional issues; (3) research…

A study compared and contrasted the attitudes and opinions of a diversified and randomly selected sample of educators and administrators in the field of teacher education. Study questionnaires sought opinions on six major factors of the basics of teacher training: (1) governance and organization; (2) program content; (3) pre-student teaching…

Three attributes of faculty competence--teaching, research, and service--were each measured by three different instruments--department chair evaluation, self-evaluation, and one other measure (student evaluations, number of publications, or number of committees). The data were analyzed through a multitrait-multimethod matrix (MTMMM) to ascertain…