The successful development, implementation, and validation of a comprehensive forecasting model for postsecondary education in Manitoba during the 1970s have provided insights into the effectiveness of human planning in complex environments. (MSE)

Examined relationships between children's perceptions of performance on a standardized achievement test and the actual test performance. Showed that students (N=311) were quite accurate in predicting their scores on the subtests and that a personal belief that ability decisively influences achievement is associated with their test performance.…

Effective school counselors must meet the challenges of predicting and planning for alternative futures. A futures perspective rests on a framework composed of five elements: guiding images, alternative choices, holistic thinking, extended time frame, and purposeful action. (MD)

Senior high social studies students discuss how people who lived during the Great Depression viewed the future and then, coming back to the present, predict how 13 new industrial inventions of today may affect life a hundred years from now. (RM)

A university president, an academic scholar, and a graduate student in higher education look back at "The Academic Revolution," written in 1968, from differing perspectives. Companion essays examine the predictions made in the book and its use as a platform for discussion about the direction taken by higher education. (MSE)

Investigated public school vandalism with 7th through 12th grade students. Found vandalism highest in 7th grade, decreasing progressively with each increase in grade level. Predictors of vandalism included being from the lowest academic track, having committed acts of vandalism during junior high school (for high school students), coming from…

The study examined longitudinal data from the Louis Terman study to identify risk factors predicting likelihood of committing suicide by gifted women. Discriminant function analysis predicted group membership (suicide, natural death, or living) of 100 percent of the suicides, 93 percent of the control group who died, and 88 percent of the living…

The correlates of classroom behavior problems for groups of 40 mainstreamed learning disabled (LD) and 40 non-LD students (grades 3-6) were identified from among various personality indicators. One personality variable--reactivity--predicted total problem behavior for the LD group, although reactivity and social flexibility predicted variance in…

Examined the potential of using repeated rate-of-response measures to identify students exhibiting difficulties in arithmetic. Second-grade students (N=30) were followed over two years. Pearson product-moment correlations were computed to determine the ability of rate-of-response measures to predict arithmetic achievement. Results indicate that…

This study examines data reflecting the actual impact during the first 3 years of use of the second edition of the Anglo American Cataloging Rules (AACR2) in one library, and compares them with a 5-year projection done in 1980. Findings showed the impact was close to the projection. (Author/EM)

Downsizing--the planned reduction of faculty, staff, and programs--can help institutions control their own destiny while responding to enrollment decline. Strategies for downsizing include: maintaining academic quality, protecting job security, deciding what to cut, determining student/faculty ratio, and maintaining the physical plant. (MLW)

The degree of convergent validity among four methods of identifying vocational preferences is assessed via the decision theoretic paradigm. Vocational preferences identified by Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI), a rating procedure, and ranking were compared with preferences identified from a policy-capturing model developed from an…

A 1985 "Weekly Reader" survey found that school children predict worsening United States and global conditions that bear no relationship to the rosy futures envisioned for themselves. To help children grasp consequences of large-scale events affecting their lives, some educators advocate using a futures wheel for charting trends and…

The World Future Society's Fifth General Assembly brought together over 3,000 people in Washington, DC, to work on solutions to myriad global problems. The outlook was sober but optimistic. Topics discussed, including peace, world order, feminism, and the futures field, are described. (RM)

Two sophisticated--autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), straight-line regression--and two naive--simple average, monthly average--forecasting techniques were used to forecast monthly circulation totals of 34 public libraries. Comparisons of forecasts and actual totals revealed that ARIMA and monthly average methods had smallest mean…