Researchers generally seek to improve student motivation without input from students concerning subject matter and teaching methods. Yet students make conceptual distinctions among different forms of knowledge, concerns, and contexts regarding knowledge. One distinction is between intellectual conventions (such as spelling) and matters of…

Evaluations of multisite programs present special challenges to evaluators concerned with the use of evaluation results. This paper offers an approach that holds promise for mitigating the problems inherent in evaluating programs at multiple sites. A brief analysis is presented of the challenges these programs present and the reasons these…

The Cambridge Sibling Study sought to investigate the structure of sibling relationship changes as children grow up, and the patterns of individual differences in these relationships in middle childhood and adolescence. It followed a group of siblings from 43 families from the preschool period through middle childhood and early adolescence. Four…

This paper discusses several considerations and techniques in doing research which attempts to measure the effects of visual images on viewers. For example, to describe precisely the effects of some element of a visual image or series of images, researchers must be able to specify the institutional context in which the image is presented and…

This study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that items of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) containing reference to American people, places, customs, etc., tend to favor examinees who have spent some time living in the United States. Two samples of examinees were drawn from the March 1987 TOEFL administration, one tested in…

A study critically reviewed current literature on gender and literacy learning as a foundation for the development of theory and further research on gender issues in adult literacy learning. One of the most surprising findings was the real lack of serious attention to gender issues in recent scholarship on early literacy and reading education. The…

This study used checklist and interview methods to assess the normative development of children's social function skills. Participants included a large, cross-sectional sample of parents of normal children ranging in age from 6 months to 7.5 years. Parents completed the checklist portion of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disabilities Inventory, a…

Teachers' diverse goals for students reflect differences in teachers' conceptions of the teaching task and students' needs. This segment of the teachers' workplace research project (fieldwork and surveys in 16 public and private secondary schools) concentrated on ways in which workplace features generated dissimilar patterns of pedagogical…

Examining how students reconstruct stories they've heard can give insights into why students often have difficulty understanding and retaining mathematics. Behavioral psychologists refer to the phenomenon of piecing together a series of events as "chaining." This paper argues that the cognitive capacity to reconstruct a whole contextual…

This study describes how the contexts of mentoring shape the perspectives and practices of mentors in the Teacher Trainee Program in Los Angeles (California), an effort to recruit candidates to teach in inner city secondary schools by providing on-the-job training to college graduates, and in the Graduate Intern Program in Albuquerque (New…

This book presents a broad vision of the moral foundations of teacher professionalism by linking the professional role of the teacher, the moral demands it makes, and the practical arts of teaching to the institution of education and its contemporary problems. The moral foundations of teaching are expressed in four dimensions of…

The study is a methodological inquiry into the interpretation of qualitative data. It explores a grounded theory approach to the synthesis of data, and examines, in particular, construction of categories. It focuses on ways of organizing data and attaching meaning, as research problems embedded in cultural context are explored. A qualitative…

Altering the age of a patient in a problem-based curriculum should encourage students to explore ethical issues related to human development. To assess the influence of a patient's age on problem-based tutorial discussion, the relevant discussion categories and the numbers of age-related discussions were compared. Subjects were four groups of six…

This book relies on three categories (visions, contexts, and roles) to explore school renewal as promulgated by participants in the National Education Association's Mastery in Learning Project. Following MIL Project Director Robert McClure's introduction covering participants' collegiality-building experiences, the "Visions" section…

This report focuses on assessing the quality of undergraduate education. A framework for thinking about the topic is provided, followed by a discussion of the ways in which the educational context is typically organized and student achievement is typically measured, with suggestions for new indicators and measures. The significance of contexts and…