The motivations of adult learners who were not admitted to college degree programs but who chose to take credit courses on a part-time basis were studied, with attention to the relationship of motivational orientations and sociodemographic variables (sex, race, age, and family income level). The study population of 464 part-time students 25 years…

The effect on achievement of the timing of the transition from elementary to intermediate school was investigated. Focus was on determining whether it matters if children transfer to an intermediate school at grade 6 or at grade 7. The Otis-Lennon School Ability Test was administered to grade 5 students in spring of 1981. The sixth and…

A study investigated the validity of an English listening skills test by comparing the results of native American and British English speakers with those of Dutch students of English as a second language. A hypothesis suggested that two-thirds of the items would test listening skills and the remaining third would test other knowledge. Test results…

To determine the influence of media on learning, a study explored students' preferences, perceived difficulty, and learning in relation to a variety of activities. A randomly selected panel of 611 students, grades three through ten, was drawn from the nine schools (six elementary, two junior high, and one senior high) that make up an entire public…

Research on second language learning suggests that age or age-related factors are a major variable in the acquisition of a second language for school. In the early stages of acquisition, older students are faster and more efficient learners, with the advantage of more advanced cognitive development in the first language. This early advantage…

A survey of current early retirement programs and faculty age distributions was conducted among 23 colleges in the Consortium on Financing Higher Education and 13 universities in the Association of American Universities. Tabular data and narrative descriptions are presented in two major sections. The first section presents data on the number of…

To investigate prospects for enrollment decline, institutional researchers from Michigan's 15 public universities participated in an enrollment project grounded in detailed examination of headcounts and credit hours over time. Each institution reported enrollment for 12 fall terms (1974 through 1985) categorized by age group, gender and degree…

Sixteen third grade students, 16 college students, and 16 older adults performed a lexical decision (word-nonword) task to determine age-related differences in the magnitude of contextual priming effects. Context length and target quality (intact versus degraded) were within subject manipulations. A significant Age X Context Length X…

Differences between men and women college administrators were assessed, based on a 1983 survey of the American Conference of Academic Deans. Responses were obtained from 238 male and 68 female administrators, which represented about 90 percent of the total 1983 Conference membership. The responses differed significantly on questions concerning…

In March 1959, Howard McClusky introduced his Power Load Margin (PLM) theory and proposed that it be used for studying the adult years and for developing and building realistic educational programs for adults. His formula, which states that the key components of adulthood are load (the demands made upon the individual by self and society) and…

This study investigated the role of knowledge base organization in elementary school students' memory performance. In a preliminary study, students in grades 2, 6, and 10 rated words from three semantic categories for their category representativeness. Results disclosed age-related changes in how children rate words for high and low typicality.…

In the twentieth century, both the need and the opportunities for acquiring a foreign language have greatly increased. However, even today, foreign language instruction has not been firmly established worldwide as an essential element of basic education. In Great Britain, enthusiasm for foreign language instruction has risen and fallen repeatedly.…

A study investigated the relationship between gender, age, and length of residence in the United States and codeswitching behavior, by looking at the attitudes of 133 Hispanic college students who are first-generation immigrants from a variety of countries. The subjects completed questionnaires concerning their English and Spanish language…

A study examined the difficulties that 400 male Arab students, attending five universities in the District of Columbia, experienced with academic English while seeking college degrees. A survey investigated problems with nine aspects of English language proficiency: (1) expressing ideas correctly, (2) understanding lectures, (3) taking class…

The estimation processes used by fifth through eighth grade students as they responded to computational estimation test items were examined. Interview-based process descriptions were cross-validated using large group test data from an open-ended test and a multiple choice test. Five question formats were used to test different estimation…