A study to find patterns of cohesion and rhetorical structure that distinguish good from weak English essay writing is described. The corpus consisted of ten Swedish college essays written as part of the final exam in a first-year English course. Methodological problems encountered included the delimitation of units for the analysis of cohesive…

A symposium of language learning specialists reviewing C.C. Fries' Oral Approach to English language instruction developed and used at the English Language Institute of the University of Michigan is summarized. The thesis of the symposium was that the basic Oral Approach concepts had and continue to have a profound and far-reaching, though largely…

The process of revising and validating two English language tests used by the United States armed forces in hiring foreign nationals overseas is described. Development of the item banks and classification of items are outlined, and field testing in the United States and overseas is described. The tests were the basic and intermediate level…

A review of the literature on a variety of issues related to testing vocabulary knowledge in a second language addresses these topics: problems in estimating vocabulary size, including the related questions of what constitutes a word, how a sample should be selected, and what are the criteria for knowing a word; sampling the basic and specialized…

This analysis of the credit and non-credit course offerings of the California community colleges provides statewide data by standardized course classification category. The report includes an analysis of courses and workload in student contact hours for the principle disciplines within the categories of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Transfer),…

Mathematics anxiety and competence of 57 Anglo and Hispanic pre-service teachers were measured before and after a 30-hour workshop using the training program EQUALS. Students were divided into three groups: elementary, secondary, and library media. Students in the library media class served as the control group; the other two groups were the…

Intended to give Canadians a general overview of the country's day care services, the study was undertaken by the Social Service Programs Branch, Health and Welfare, Canada. Begun in 1971 and updated yearly since 1973, the national survey provides an inventory of day care spaces which can be used to measure future growth in day care and to…

A study compared the benefits of using the Hewlett-Packard HP-41CV hand-held computer, as opposed to conventional training without computers, in teaching mathematics to fire control systems repairers. Thirty soldiers in a course to train fire control systems repairers received training in technical mathematics using the hand-held computer, whereas…

The education of women, involving both their educational/career ambitions and their concern for intimate relationships, is discussed. As traditional undergraduates enter liberal arts colleges, two important developmental tasks arise: establishing a sense of self independent of family and developing a capacity for intimacy. While today's college…

The amounts, types, and sources of financial aid received by Illinois college students are reported, based on the 1985 Illinois Student Financial Aid Survey. Data are provided for 332,868 Illinois students attending 168 public and private colleges and universities. Included are a narrative discussion of the findings, including the growth and…

Because of concern about the harmful effects of placing children in low reading groups, this study tested the following "sacred cows" in reading: (1) the use of informal reading inventories for grouping children in reading instruction, (2) the homogeneous grouping practices currently utilized in most classrooms in the United States, (3)…

Second grade good readers (N=46) and fourth grade good and poor readers (N=46; N=48) were subjects in a study that examined linguistic cue usage by good and poor readers in a Southern metropolitan area. A secondary purpose was to compare the standard and phoneme cloze procedures with oral miscue analysis. The subjects were identified as good or…

The effects of college choice on the educational experiences and attainments of female and male college entrants in 1972 were studied, using institutional data and results of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Attention was directed to: college control and level, average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, percent of…

Validity is a central issue in use of self-report data for the investigation of teacher thinking. "Triangulation," or use of several data sets to test, corroborate and elaborate each other, is one method for increasing validity of findings. This paper illustrates a process of triangulation of data obtained by three different data…

Using survey responses and catalogue descriptions from 38 programs, the paper examines the current status of Chicano studies programs in four-year colleges/universities in the Southwest. Findings indicate many programs evolved from the civil rights legislation of the 1960s to address ethnic minority concerns and to offer curriculum in the…