This report describes a program for motivating reluctant writers. The targeted population consisted of one fourth-grade and four fifth-grade classrooms in three elementary schools. All three schools were located in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The problems of reluctant writers were documented with timed writing samples, student and…

Undergraduate education majors in a teacher preparation program completed a computer-assisted instructional program for a study designed to examine the effects of type of instructional control and program mode on the achievement, option use, time spent on program, and attitudes of higher and lower ability students. Students were assigned to high…

Instructional metacognition refers both to conceptions of students about the contribution that instructional interventions can make to their learning, and to the impact of these conceptions on students' interpretation and use of instructional interventions. This study analyzes student conceptions of efficiency-related attributes of instructional…

This paper discusses the role of institutional researchers in changing attitudes within institutions of higher education on the importance of efforts to improve student retention. It describes activities undertaken at Virginia Tech to determine why students voluntarily withdraw from the university in the context of changing attitudes within the…

A study examined gender differences in reading attitudes among school age children. The hypothesis was that school age children in grades K-8 regard reading as a predominately feminine activity. Subjects were 269 students, grades K-8, from a low-income, urban school setting. Students completed Reading Attitude Surveys, modified from the Downing…

This Master's research project involved implementation of a program to increase learning readiness skills of children entering kindergarten. The target population was pre-kindergarten students in a changing urban community in northern Illinois. The problem of lack of readiness skills for learning was documented through teacher tests and…

This study examined the effects of goals--such as denoting learning and performance outcomes--and self-evaluation on the acquisition of computer skills, efficacy in performing computer tasks, perception of competence for the use of self-regulatory strategies, and frequency of strategy use while learning computer skills. Subjects were 44 college…

This paper analyzed the evolution of formal education in Africa with emphasis on the weaknesses and strengths of the system identified. Although the roots of modern education can be found in the early institutions of learning and libraries of Alexandria and Timbuktu in Africa, the continent today lags behind in all the fields of formal education.…

During the past 6 years, under a contract from the National Center for Education Statistics, a Technical Review Panel has overseen and conducted a series of research studies addressing a range of validity questions relevant to the various uses and interpretations of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Study topics included: (1)…

This paper reports on the latest phase of a multiyear interdisciplinary research project aimed at describing the characteristics of highly successful classrooms for minority students. The first phase was a study of literacy instruction in 40 4th and 5th grade classrooms in Denver (Colorado) schools. This study provides a detailed explanation of…

Two studies are reviewed that have uncovered how the motivational patterns of resilient African American and Hispanic adolescents differ from their nonresilient counterparts. The first study found that resilient African American adolescents differed from their nonresilient counterparts in having a stronger cognitive motivational pattern of the…

A comparative study examined the literacy habits and attitudes of children in two sixth-grade classrooms in Hawaii, one with a learning-centered instructional approach and the other with a traditional transmission instructional approach. The majority of the 26 students in the learning-centered classroom and the 24 students in the traditional…

This report describes a program for improving the motivation of sixth grade students in the music class and for increasing their understanding of the relevancy of music in their total curriculum. The students are part of a low to middle class suburban community located in northeastern Illinois. The problem was noted originally by the music teacher…

This research project was inspired by an observation that in written descriptions of pupils by student teachers, gender appeared to play a role in the words used to describe successful students. Girls were interpreted as "overconscientious," while boys were regarded as "scientific types." The project centered on Anna, an…

The issues confronting education today challenge educators on all levels and make it more imperative that colleges, school boards, and administrations work together. Collaboration on writing projects between college writers and elementary school writers, and between freshmen English high school writers and college writers at the University of…