The nine-volume Survey Kit is designed to help readers prepare and conduct surveys and become better users of survey results. All the books in the series contain instructional objectives, exercises and answers, examples of surveys in use, illustrations of survey questions, guidelines for action, checklists of "dos and don'ts," and…

A study compared teachers' and principals' perceptions of six elements of effective teaching: classroom climate, questioning, set induction, stimulus variation, reinforcement, and closure. The part of the study reported here focuses on elementary teachers' written ratings and rankings of the six elements. The sample for the study was comprised of…

This report focuses on pedgagogical technique within the context of the rapid expansion and demographic changes in college and university enrollments and how, coupled with budgetary entrenchment, these forces have left institutions of higher education dedicated to providing quality education in a state of crisis. Teaching is seen to be the key…

Well-known questioning strategies, built on question classification systems, are examined. Types of question classification systems are identified as: "hierarchical," which are sequential and cumulative; "non-hierarchical," which are based on elements which should not be rank ordered; systems which are "context-bound" to specifics; and…

Because students who do not read and write cannot participate effectively in a democratic society, the staff of the College Skills Program at Burlington County (New Jersey) College has designed a developmental skills program in reading and writing with a social science core. The program (Social Science 100) emphasizes reading, thinking,…

This paper discusses ideas for teachers to increase successful comprehension of their questions by language delayed students. Three kinds of questioning techniques are described. Most often used by teachers are "WH-words" (e.g., who, what, how). Noun-verb reversal (e.g., Can you come to the group?) follows in amount of usage. The least used…

A 6-week study on the status of classroom discourse was carried out at St. Norbert College (Wisconsin). Ten tenure-track professors kept notes or journals on their classroom discourse activities for 6 weeks and wrote a scholarly essay on the experience at its conclusion. During the period, they also tried to improve discourse quality in their…

This paper examines the nature of student engagement in the instructional activities of eighth- and ninth-grade English classes and draws general conclusions applicable to instruction at all levels. It focuses on the teacher's pivotal role, showing that certain discourse practices elicit substantive (rather than procedural) student engagement,…

Based on the idea that inference abilities are essential to comprehension, this essay discusses systematic oral questioning strategies designed to help both junior and senior high school teachers develop students' reading comprehension abilities. Questioning strategies are examined in terms of their purpose, efficiency, motivation, and required…

This experiment examined the effects of headings and adjunct questions embedded in expository text on the delayed multiple-choice test performance of college students. Subjects in the headings-present group performed significantly better on the retention test than did the subjects in the headings-absent group. The main effect of adjunct questions…

Discussing findings from three studies, this report focuses on questions mothers ask their children while looking at picture books and recent family photographs. In the first study, 30 mothers and their 12-, 15-, and 18-month-old children "read" a simple ABC book that had one picture for each letter in the alphabet. In the second study,…

A study found that conceptual functioning level emerged as an important variable in distinguishing between effective and less effective supervisory intervention. Four supervisors, with their respective supervisees, participated in the study. Participants were videotaped and observed, and transcripts of conference dialogues and participant thought…

A pamphlet, intended to help Indian communities select executive directors for community organizations, summarizes information from a seminar on executive search and selection, sponsored by the Community Board Training Project (CBTP) of the Native American Educational Services (NAES) College. A chapter on the search process addresses the formation…

To determine what effect the elimination of all literal questioning would have on students' literal comprehension abilities as well as inferential abilities, a five-month study was conducted with four groups of third and fourth grade students (n=33) who were reading on grade level in their school's adopted basal series. Two different third and…

Since the questions included in literature anthologies play a key role in the high school English class questioning process, a study examined the questions in four eleventh-grade American literature anthologies. The anthologies met the following criteria: textbooks (1) contained selections organized chronologically, (2) were major compilations in…