A generation ago, Fred N. Kerlinger proposed that there were a number of myths that pervaded educational research. An overview of three specific myths is presented, followed by a discussion of the degree to which these myths have been overcome or still exist in educational research. The first of these myths, the "methods" myth, is…

A survey consisting of 8 items was sent to alumni of graduate level programs in reading education at 3 universities to obtain an overall picture of the remedial reading practicum experience and to elicit information about the degree to which former students find their experiences in remedial reading education programs relevant to their current…

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in teacher research and action research as ways of knowing about teaching and learning, but assisting preservice and inservice teachers to become teacher researchers has not traditionally been accommodated by teacher education programs. The model English education program at the University of…

Confronting recent design challenges, instructional designers have latched onto adaptive procedural techniques from outside the Instructional Systems Design (ISD) field. This discussion of rapid prototyping (RP) examines the perspectives of: (1) the prototype as the designer"s cognitive tool; (2) the designer as co-inquirer; and (3) the…

This paper suggests the need for a broader conceptualization of both instructional design and of instructional design theory, suggesting that this broader view is necessary to establish a truly comprehensive and functional theory base. Theories come in many forms: they can be formal systems of laws and propositions, narrative explanations and…

Viewed through an investigation of the cultural and social impact of Information Technology (IT), this paper attempts to illustrate the theoretical and practical utility of HCI (Human Computer Interaction) to communication research. Informed by the full integration hypothesis, which suggests that information technologies have become part of the…

This paper examines linkages between educational philosophy and classroom activities and presents 10 guidelines for early childhood teachers and administrators to effectively strengthen these linkages. The 10 guidelines are: (1) each child has a capacity to respond to what the teacher brings to the classroom; (2) educators need to open the world…

Top-down and bottom-up theories have long dominated the field of reading. Recently, interactive models have been proposed by some researchers. One model, the interactive-compensatory model, hypothesizes that a deficiency in one processing area is compensated for by a relative strength in another area. The concept of multiple intelligences is one…

Making the case that the human achievement of reading has few if any equals, this book uses protocol analysis data related to reading to develop a rich description and understanding of cognitive and affective processes during reading. The book concludes that reading is "constructively responsive"--that is, good readers are always…

The future role of the social sciences in educational administration theory is explored in this paper. First, the turn toward the social sciences in educational administration is considered. Attacks by the subjectivist and critical theorists on positivistic science are examined next, with attention to the decline of those two views in sociology…

The purpose of this paper is to prove that including a significant theoretical component in instructional technology curricula has numerous advantages. The discussion is confined to curricula offered at universities, typically at the graduate level. Three topics are discussed: (1) the current state of instructional technology programs; (2) why…

Communication scholars are uniquely suited to developing and implementing mechanisms that will promote a multicultural dialogue and build community. Storytelling is one such mechanism. Storytelling can be beneficial to the spiritual psyche on both the individual and universal levels. The folktale "The Princess Who Wanted to See G-d"…

The awakening of public interest in curriculum has come at a time when, within the education profession, the conventional wisdom about teaching and learning has itself undergone a major transformation. New Constructivist theories of knowing have emphasized the social nature of the construction of knowledge: students learn by "putting it into…

The single great value of composition theory is that it gives writing instructors ways to perceive and to talk (about)/write (about) and experience the language that they purport to teach. It is a vocabulary (or set of vocabularies) that, in its structures and definitions, (re-)structures and (re-)defines perceptions of language. If writing is a…

This paper offers a process for organizational decision making that will assist educators involved in school restructuring. The first part, which focuses on the nature of theory and the relationship of theory to practice, concludes that current organizational theory on decision making is inadequate. The next section outlines four stages of a…