This conference report identifies research needs in evaluating and documenting large scale school improvement efforts to serve disadvantaged populations. Summaries of the conference presentations are provided, grouped into three sections. The first section examines the basis of conducting evaluations. Several basic assumptions are challenged,…

Methods of identifying effective special education practices are analyzed to help practitioners identify and adopt such practices. The contents of this guide include a flowchart for effective practice identification (EPI), an analysis of decision-making steps in this process, and two examples of identification procedures. The decision-making steps…

The eighth in a series of publications dealing with aspects of intercultural communication, this volume focuses on approaches to intercultural communication research. The 16 chapters of the volume are arranged into three sections: diverse approaches to research, quantitative approaches, and qualitative approaches. Specific chapters discuss the…

A detailed plan for stages one and two of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project is presented in this paper and factors considered in the project's research design are discussed in depth. The first section describes the working hypotheses of the project--that there are primordial patterns in the response to literature that are common…

Prepared as part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, this paper contains descriptions of the core group of readers (600 18-year-old students) and the special groups of readers (each composed of approximately 50 subjects) who participated in the investigation of the collective versus the individual nature of the reader response…

Designed as a comprehensive guide to the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience (NLS), this handbook is intended for two major categories of readers. For persons who wish to ascertain whether their research interests can be served by the NLS data, the handbook can provide the detailed description of the objectives of the surveys,…

An outline is presented of the design of the followup surveys of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS). The NLS is an extensive study of the educational, vocational, and personal development of high school graduates, and the personal, familial, social, institutional, and cultural factors that contribute to that…

The National Institute of Education (NIE) had commissioned an evaluation project of certain postsecondary programs for nontraditional students that would involve decision makers in the core of the design activity. This report discusses the conflict that emerged between NIE and the Center for Research and Development in Higher Education (CRDHE) and…

Crime Prevention deals with the effort to control crime and the fear of crime through a variety of community resources. Research efforts of the Department of Justice, first developed in the early 1970's, focused on increasing knowledge and understanding to promote more effective crime prevention. The National Institute of Justice has sponsored…

A conceptual basis for a major study on science education in Canada to be conducted by the Science Council of Canada is presented. Section one explains the rationale behind the study. Different people argue that the relevance of science to daily living has been lost and that science education should therefore focus on the purpose of science rather…

Based on the evaluators' experience with a large-scale curriculum development project, this manual is designed to aid those who plan and implement field tests of educational products (instructional procedures and materials) in natural school settings. Within the procedures discussed, problems likely to arise are described. The steps in…

The major objective of this pilot survey was to pretest questions for use in the development and design of a larger, more definitive survey of residents of rural communities in Appalachia, planned for the spring of 1981, and to obtain preliminary descriptive data about the area's residents. Telephone interviews covered respondents' family…

The purpose of phase 3 of Project IMPACT (a project to assess the impact of vocational education research and development on vocational education programs in Illinois) was to review, further conceptualize, and refine the impact assessment system for vocational education research and development efforts proposed during fiscal 1989. The following…

Practical information is provided, in a question and answer format, for community college officials who are planning to conduct a community needs assessment. A brief discussion of the usefulness of needs assessment surveys to the college planning process is followed by descriptions of eight steps to be followed in planning and conducting a survey:…

Perspectives on interdisciplinary research are considered in terms of project planning, the choice of problem-solving approach, the research field, project organization, informal organization, and integration of knowledge. Interdisciplinary studies were investigaged through following a number of research projects by means of field trips,…