To explore the utility of decision seminars as instructional tools in educational administration training, researchers observed two one-quarter graduate courses in educational administration at Ohio State University. In the courses--one with 13 students, the other with 18--the decision seminar was used as an instructional framework within which…

The relationship between lesson characteristics and the improvement of the delivery of educational services to Hispanic Americans was examined, using data from four contrasting classrooms (two successful and two unsuccessful) located in a Southern California medium-sized school district. The contrast between classrooms was determined by the…

A follow-up study was conducted to determine if changes would occur in the sex stereotyping of child- selected play activities over a 6-month period. Subjects were fifty 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children enrolled in nursery school programs at a midwestern university during the 1979-80 school year. For one 6-week period in the fall and one in the…

These guidelines outline the role of the visiting team members and familiarize them with those details necessary to conduct a condensed external evaluation of Wisconsin secondary vocational programs. (Such condensed evaluations are conducted when a full team visitation is not appropriate.) First, the three goals of the on-site evaluation are…

This study focuses on standardized test administration in five elementary schools. The authors discuss how teachers affect test validity by altering standard test procedures in both planned and incidental ways. Each of the 16 voluntary teachers who participated in this study was observed in her/his classroom administering certain subtests of the…

This report describes vocational education in West Germany from a Canadian viewpoint. Chapter 1 discusses education in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1949, including findings and govermental agencies/departments. A resume of the school system is provided in chapter 2. It covers kindergarten and preschool facilities, primary school, three…

The overall purpose of the national Head Start evaluation is to assess the impact, on the children and parents being served, of: (1) the educational services component of Head Start, and (2) a new demonstration program within Head Start, Basic Educational Skills. The evaluation deals with a total of 65 Head Start programs and their families. This…

Comparisons were made of qualitative and quantitative information collected in nine second grade reading classes in a study that examined the respective strengths and weaknesses of using such information to evaluate teacher behavior. Data that were collected included trained ethnographers' narrative observations of teacher behavior (the…

This guide for teachers and administrators involved in educating parents and their toddlers emphasizes the utilization of existing school facilities to meet program needs. Section I contains a detailed explanation of the preliminary work which the teacher or administrator must complete before the first parent-toddler session. Following this…

Evaluation is viewed as essential to decision making and social policy development. Since conventional methods have been disappointing or inadequate, naturalistic inquiry (N/I) differs from conventional science in minimizing constraints on antecedent conditions (controls) and on output (dependent variables). N/I is phenomenological rather than…

An instrument is presented for recording and analyzing student and teacher behavior in laboratory or activity-centered vocational education classrooms. The instrument uses categories of behavior, such as: (1) asks extended thought questions, (2) shows or illustrates, and (3) management of lesson, for teachers; and categories such as: (1) asks…

The possibility that "coder drift" may be a source of bias in classroom observation systems was investigated in two parallel experiments using the Flanders System of Interaction Analysis. Coder drift may be described as the differences in coding which result when observers create their own idiosyncratic systems of classifying teacher…

The results of two experiments support the hypothesis of "coder drift" which is defined as change that takes place while trained coders are using a system for a number of classroom observation sessions. The coding system used was a modification of the low-inference Flanders System of Interaction Analysis which calls for assigning…

This report compares the first and second years of a 4-year study on changes in patterns of social behavior and conceptions of 8-12 year-old children following the introduction of television in their community. Three towns of similar composition were selected for their naturally occuring differences in quantity and duration of experience with…

An approach for systematically observing and recording behavioral difference in the classroom is described, and its use with 11 behavior problem elementary students is discussed. The author points out the importance of peer sampling and the use of multiple observations to avoid erroneous conclusions. A case study of a second grade child…