This report was submitted by Education Turnkey Systems, Inc. and its subcontractor, Kirschner Associates, Inc. and key University of Maryland and other consultants in response to the needs of the National Institute of Education as specified in the Request for Proposal "to develop a Design to Study Individualized Instruction, as part of a general…

An attempt is made, in this paper, to develop a model that would apply ethnographic research techniques to public school research and systems. The model presented consists of three developmental phases. In the first phase two basic approaches to field design, either of which can be used are described: the emergent categories approach, in which the…

The purpose of this report is to describe a study concerning organizational processes in an alternative high school with walls (Metro High School), which is part of the Chicago public school system, and its effects on students during the first 18 months of operation. Student development comparisons are made between a group attending Metro and a…

A two-year evaluation of William Glasser's Schools Without Failure (SWF) program was carried out in the New Castle School District in Pennsylvania. In the first year, ten elementary schools were paired on the basis of size, socioeconomic status, and past achievement of pupils. One school of each pair was randomly assigned to begin teacher-training…

This paper examines how potential conflicts produced by ethical issues such as confidence and confidentiality can affect the research methodology of educational research and evaluation projects. Despite the differences in site selection, clientele, and relationship to treatment, both evaluators and researchers must make adjustments in method to…

Representing a set of required readings for those who would keep abreast of developments in the field of educational evaluation, this book presents nine chapters, each written by a recognized scholar on the topic being considered. Several chapters are also available as separate booklets, thereby increasing the flexibility with which the materials…

This analytical survey of research on early school leaving was done under the auspices of the Center for Studies in Education and Development at the Graduate School of Education of Harvard University. The purpose of the study is to offer an introduction to research on the antecedents and consequences of early school leaving for planners,…

The purpose of this study was to seek conclusive data for answering the following research question: To what extent can the attitudes of community colleges students be improved through the systematic application of commercially produced attitude change packages? Eight California community colleges conducted an experiment using a variety of…

In his book, "I.Q. in the Meritocracy," Richard J. Herrnstein (1973) calls on a classic article by Barbara S. Burks (1928) to support his position that a large part of the variation in intelligence can be accounted for by variation in heredity, as distinguished from variation in environment, and from covariation of heredity and…

The similar structure of present-day North American cities makes it impossible to study urban poverty as anything other than a concomitant of the possession of certain demographic characteristics the penalty for which is imposed on a society-wide level. By shifting our focus, however, to incorporate both Latin American cities and North American…

Coping is defined as the process by which the child attempts to control, synthesize, and make his world manageable. Coping behaviors found in the literature and observed in five preschool classrooms were behaviorally defined to facilitate their identification and observation by trained adults. An instrument designed for use in observation of these…

This study explored varying uses of the concept "involvement" in ordinary speech, examined the concept as found in the literature on adult education program planning, and analyzed its use and validity in empirical behavioral science research. It was expected that the concept would be further clarified, thus increasing the likelihood of forming…

Methodological difficulties inherent in the design of studies of college impact are reviewed and an attempt is made to provide an improved research design. The discussion of research problems focuses on those of inferring causation. A characteristic three-component model of student development, comprised of student output, student input, and…

Methods for the implementation of on-line contingent research are described in this study. In a contingent experimentation procedure, the content of successive experimental trials is a function of a subject's responses to a previous trial or trials (in contrast to traditional experimentation in which the subject is presented a previously…

This paper has two purposes: (1) to describe the general characteristics of a research project on which this is one part; and (2) to report an experimental attempt at improving academi c performance of low achieving ninth grade students through self concept enhancement (Experiment B). Briefly discussed are the experiments and the research design…