Observations of one mainstreamed child and one "ordinary child" at each of 12 day care centers were compared. Five of the 12 mainstreamed children were mentally retarded, and seven had a slight developmental retardation mainly due to deprivation. Observations of 10-minute duration, totaling 4 hours and dispersed across 7 days, focused on…

Perspectives concerning a field-based inquiry approach to medical education are offered. This approach requires that inquiry tactics more closely match educational and clinical processes. Assumptions about naturalistic and quasi-experimental educational research are considered that indicate a common field-based approach to inquiry. Parallel…

The nature of classroom activities, cognitive learning opportunities, and instruction in seventh and eighth grades within the academic subject areas was examined. The purpose was to describe and interpret classroom learning opportunities in terms compatible with the complexity of typical classroom events and teachers' understanding of those…

A study was conducted to describe the experiences of five preservice teachers who taught in a special practicum without cooperating teachers. Prior to the practicum, the student teachers were interviewed to ascertain their views on teaching reading and what they hoped to gain from the practicum to further prepare them to teach it. Each student was…

Miami University's (Ohio) two-course educational psychology sequence for prospective teachers has been redesigned to incorporate early field experiences. Concerns about the congruence of field tasks with course content, as well as about limiting situational constraints, were addressed by a committee on teacher preparation. Currently, each semester…

Program documentation is an important role for evaluation in both formative and summative modes. It should describe processes, materials, participants and social interactions which produce certain outcomes. Program evaluation should judge the effect of the program and depict effective practices, products and outcomes. To demonstrate program…

Teachers' perspectives on the student assessment process and on the role of testing in that process are presented. Primarily ethnographic in approach, this study includes investigations of teachers' ideas and thought processes as well as observation of actual classroom practice. Six elementary teachers participated in a three-stage process of…

Characteristics that seem to separate effective and ineffective teacher evaluation systems provide a framework for viewing existing evaluation systems and determining necessary changes. Nine commonalities represent the best practices: (1) participants share an attitude that the purpose of an evaluation system is to provide assistance in the…

The study examined social behaviors of 19 gifted and 19 nongifted preschool children. A social behavioral inventory was developed from repeated observations of interactions collected during an 8 week pilot study. Four general categories of behavior were observed and analyzed: verbal positive (greeting, conversation, compliment, concern, laughing,…

Little is known about how teachers encourage memory activity and strategy use in children. In order to gain such information, 69 teachers of grades K through 6 were observed in five 30-minute periods. A total of 292 strategy suggestions and 15 instances in which the teacher attempted to suppress spontaneous strategy use were observed. Teachers…

Observations of children's responses to picture books in three first-to-fourth-grade classrooms over a two-year period helped to form a descriptive framework for children's responses to picture books. Field notes, transcripts, and other data revealed that when children talked about picture books, they used the lexicon of the expert. They seemed…

The team treatment model is extremely popular in residential group care for emotionally disturbed and/or troubled children and youth; however, there is little information to verify that the model is being implemented and that desired outcomes are being obtained. This field study was designed to explore the team decision-making process through…

This module (part of a series of 24 modules) is on teachers' use of systematic observation records of social behavior to aid in assessing students' special needs and in evaluating the effects of specific programs. The genesis of these materials is in the 10 "clusters of capabilities," outlined in the paper, "A Common Body of…

A study was conducted to assess the validity and reliability of R. Moss's "Classroom Analysis of Teachers' Theoretical Orientation to Reading" in order to provide an observation system specifically intended for assessing a teacher's reading instruction as a function of theoretical orientation. Five reading experts were chosen to…

The verbal behavior of the teachers of two London Primary School open classrooms was characterized. Four categories of verbal behavior were found and 19 percent of all teacher utterances could be classified as potentially reinforcing to students. (SDH)