Discusses differences between e-mail reference interviews and those conducted using other media; presents a taxonomy of approaches to e-mail interviews; and introduces a model e-mail interview, based on a project at the University of Maryland's College of Library and Information Services. (Author/LRW)

States that research and writing begin with a play of determinacy and indeterminacy, including presuppositions, formal findings, and technical and media products. Finds that this rhetorical approach leads to identifying levels and relationships. Suggests a typology for furthering dialog in science, literary criticism, and technical writing. (PA)

Examines the perspectives of administrators in Michigan school districts engaged in change processes. Responses from 83 administrators suggest a framing mechanism, or taxonomy, that represents the current state of change efforts in the state. First-wave, or state-mandated, change is driving most reform in Michigan at present. (SLD)

This investigation for grades five and six is based on using literature as a vehicle to develop mathematical understanding. The fairy tale "Cinderella" is used to identify similarities and differences, classify and sort information, as well as develop communication skills. (AIM)

This taxonomy of learning tasks new employees must complete has four categories: individual (attitudes, expectations), people (relationships, supervision), work tasks (knowledge, skills, abilities), and organization (culture, roles). Learning tasks are accomplished through three types of intervention: orientation, job training, and workplace…

Explores young people's perceptions of mentoring relationships. Proposes a typology of mentoring forms. Interviewed a sample of 150 adolescents, both in groups and individually. A range of forms of mentoring were perceived as valuable. From these a typology of mentoring forms is devised. (KW)

Psychometric data are presented for 223 children and adults with autism, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDDNOS), or nonspectrum diagnoses who took the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic. Within each module, diagnostic groups were equivalent on expressive language levels. Results indicate substantial…

Proposes a hierarchical item response theory (IRT) model for mastery classification in criterion-referenced measurement. In this model, items measuring the same criterion are grouped, and a difficulty and discrimination parameter for the criterion is estimated on the same scale as the person and item parameters. Illustrates the model with a test…

Review of eight studies evaluating strategies for teaching nursing research found they emphasized contextual rather than internal or external validity. A typology for research on teaching strategies was proposed using the categories of purpose, methodological assumptions, types of validity, and sample size. (Contains 45 references.) (SK)

Qualitative and quantitative measures were utilized to explore the abilities of 11 young children nominated by their parents as gifted. Characteristics nominated by parents as indicators of their child's giftedness were consistent with indicators in the research literature and were generally supported by norm-referenced test results and teacher…

Three experiments examined the relative importance of original function and current function in artifact categorization for young children and adults. It was concluded that 6-year-olds have begun to organize their understanding of artifacts around the notion of original function, whereas 4-year-olds have not. Data were examined in terms of how…

Identifies, describes, and categorizes events occurring between members of different learning groups in three ninth-grade physical science classrooms. Explains how concepts, ideas, tools, tool-related practices, and materials diffused throughout the classroom environment were appropriated by learners in various ways to contribute to the…

Four studies examined the tendency of preschoolers to use verbal labels versus appearance information in making novel inductive inferences. Results revealed that preschoolers tended to use trait labels of "shy" or "outgoing" rather than superficial resemblance in making psychological inferences. These results could not be attributed to biases on…

Describes connectionist model showing exclusivity asymmetries when categorizing visual stimuli, similar to pattern shown by infants. Examines asymmetries in terms of an associative learning mechanism, distributed internal representations, and statistics of feature distributions in the stimuli. Details test of model with infants, finding that…

Categorization and analysis of articles on tourism research provided evidence that tourism is not a discipline but a field. A case study of a travel and tourism management program at a British university shows how business studies are emphasized in preparing for the field. (Contains 50 references.) (SK)