Papers from the conference include the following: opening remarks (Lorne Laforge and William F. Mackey); a position paper on the written language of the world (Grant D. McConnell); "An Overview of the Practical and Theoretical Implications of the 'Written Languages of India' Survey Regarding Language and National Development Strategies"…

The preparation of a directory of foreign language education programs was a response to the lack of an information source for location or curricular content of programs in foreign language pedagogy, and followed the lead of other associations in the United States and abroad in compiling such information. Despite having developed guidelines for…

This study investigated the sensitivity of the pupillary response as an indicator of average mental load during three language processing tasks of varying complexity. The tasks included: (1) listening (without any subsequent comprehension testing); (2) speech shadowing (repeating a message in the same language while listening to it); and (3)…

The positive and negative experiences a professional educator had in in the role of researcher are used to discuss several dilemmas that this dual role brings: presentation of self; preparation and conduct of the study; reciprocity for subjects; presentation of findings; researcher bias; and anticipation of concern. Several conclusions drawn were:…

The usefulness of microcomputers for teaching social science research methods has been the subject of numerous articles. This article describes how microcomputers can be used to teach public policy content, particularly topics involving controversial issues. The discussion is organized into four sections. Section 1, "Four Important Elements,"…

The main theme of the conference was the politics of adult education research. The following papers from the conference are included in this compilation, following the opening address (Nisbet): "Some Tension Points in Adult Education Research" (Bryant and Usher); "Key Issues in Adult Education Research" (Gerver); "Some…

This paper illustrates the need for full description and measurement of differences between "experimental" and "control" situations in school program evaluation studies. Two studies were completed at the University of Oregon involving the innovative program--differentiated staffing (DS). The first study, a doctoral investigation, sought to assess…

The encoding of Swedish syntactic information in a study of linguistic data processing is described in detail. The choice of syntactic variables and classification criteria, illustrated with examples, is also discussed. In addition, uses of the coding for contrasting languages, as in this study's comparison of Swedish, Finnish, and English word…

A framework is described for preparing process profiles of two different surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): the Recent College Graduates Survey and the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) Fall Enrollment Survey. The process profile examines the adequacy of the entire survey process, using…

One approach to identifying effective schools defines effectiveness in terms of student achievement in reading, mathematics, and language usage. Exceptional school achievement is indicated by performance above or below the level expected if students were merely to maintain their previous rate of growth. Regression analysis is used to compute…

The need for an analytical approach to the study of phatic, metalingual, and metacommunicative functions in asymmetrical communicative situations (between native speakers and language learners) is discussed. The study presents theoretical frameworks for gambits and repairs, the linguistic phenomena that primarily serve those functions, and…

Arguing that curriculum developers need to seek a better understanding of existing classroom orders before advising reform through new technology, this paper presents a review of research on the effects of microcomputers on the stabilities of classroom practice and describes a pilot study currently underway at Queens University in Ontario to…

Child socialization research among American Indians must account for tribal differences, examining gender roles in a given tribal culture, and employing studies of enculturation and acculturation, life histories, and ethnographies. Child socialization in the Teton Sioux or Lakota tribe can be used to illustrate these research techniques. The…

Two studies were conducted to compare the advance organizer and concept elaboration models of instruction with a task analysis approach. It was hypothesized that the concept elaboration group would achieve significantly higher than either the advance organizer group or the task analysis group on concept learning and principle learning. A pilot…

This study investigated the effects of medium of instruction, task difficulty, and gender on continuing motivation. A total of 139 fifth and sixth graders with previous computer experience completed an initial learning task in one of the two media formats (computer or paper/pencil) and under either a hard or easy difficulty level. Students' choice…