This preliminary study of 20 contemporary realistic fiction books for youth, in middle school and above, analyzed images of poverty using a framework adapted from the work of Robert Leahy. Findings are related to demographics, images of poverty and emerging themes. Results indicate that, as a whole, the sample of books rely on concrete images of…

This study investigates how teachers and students assess the textbooks they use in history courses at the high school level in Turkey. The study included 61 high schools in 23 provinces representing the 7 geographic regions of Turkey. Through a survey questionnaire, teachers and students were asked their perceptions of the textbooks. Then a…

This pamphlet summarizes the key findings of a two-part study that investigated the messages that young women (age 10 to 17) get from the media. A content analysis examined messages to girls across a range of media most heavily used by adolescent girls: television, movies, magazines, music videos, television commercials, and magazine…

This paper reports the perceptions of inservice teachers participating in a World Wide Web-based university course. The pedagogical soundness of distance education courses that model constructivist learning theory and that are available to learners at times and places convenient to them are also examined. Qualitative methods were used to collect…

This study looks at how the media used in online discussion can affect the learning outcomes for students involved in distance learning activities. Online discussion within any learning environment can provide the opportunity for students to engage in thoughtful, content-based conversations about the topic under study, which may result in deeper…

This article reports a study examining the presence of environmental issues in ELT coursebooks published since 1990. Seventeen randomly-selected coursebooks were analysed in order to find the percentage of activities related to environmental issues. Such activities were then examined to establish whether they involved participation in…

Reports briefly on research concerning (1) network television coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis, (2) puffery and readership of magazine advertisements, (3) television role models and anticipated social interaction, (4) portrayals of the elderly in magazine advertisements, and (5) British broadcast coverage of the Soviet invasion of…

Results in study 1 indicate teams spent twice as much time discussing academic information as behavioral information; little time was spent discussing physical or medical data. In study 2 nearly all of the meetings were devoted primarily to classroom data, scores on achievement tests, and scores on intelligence tests. (Author)

To identify and compare prominent symbols of social relationships used in children's reading materials, a sociological analysis was made of literary materials used for developing children's reading in grades four, five, and six in India and Canada. (HOD)

Senior high students who were given concepts simultaneously learned more than those who received concepts successively. A second variable, instructional control strategy, contrasted an adaptive (computer-assisted) control strategy with learner control. Performance was above the criterion level for the adaptive condition, but below it for learner…

Stories were constructed in which minor variations in content influenced the relationship existing between statements. The stories had four episodes, which were either logically related or independent. First and third graders could more accurately recall the structure of the logically organized episodes than that of the temporally listed episodes.…

Responds to Cipro, Mathur, and Kassam's critical essays (in this issue) on his previous study of literacy and national development. The author offers clarification or further thoughts on several statements with which he disagrees, such as the theory of stages for literacy, work-oriented literacy, and the quality of life and liberation. (MF)

Presents an overview of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and then describes the UNESCO Recommendation on the Development of Adult Education, the first worldwide standard-setting instrument in this field, and suggests why the provisions of this document are important to adult educators in the United…

Ninety-three secondary school biology textbooks, identified in the appendix bibliography, were analyzed to determine the extent of emphasis of 44 topics concerned with the study of evolution. (HM)

Content analysis of 61 student teaching supervision handbooks from Midwest teacher education programs found that these guides did not clearly state program objectives nor clearly define the roles of cooperating teachers and university supervisors. Correlation analysis indicated a lack of congruence between program goals and the outcomes assessed…