These proceedings contain six conference papers with commentary and discussion: (1) Dell Hymes, "On Communicative Competence," (2) David McNeill, "How to Learn a First Language," (3) Wayne O'Neil, "A Theory of Linguistic Performance," (4) William Stewart, "Social Dialect," (5) Paul Cohen, "Some Methods in Sociolinguistic Research," and (6) S. Alan…

The articles comprising this bulletin report the status of research methods in the English language arts and indicate promising directions for further effort. Ralph C. Staiger discusses the range of language arts research and points out the strengths and weaknesses of various research techniques. Theodore Clymer examines the essential…

Several methodological issues related to second language acquisition research are considered, and a two-part study is discussed that addresses issues related to data collection, i.e., how and how frequent, and data analysis, i.e., the appropriateness of the statistical tools, the justification of inferences and the comparability of results based…

Both administratively and in terms of their evaluations, Head Start and Follow Through have been treated as separate programs. Follow Through was initially conceived, however, as an effort to preserve and augment Head Start gains. In this report, achievement test data on a set of children who participated in both Head Start and Follow Through are…

This document is intended as a resource guide for institutional researchers, based on the experience of the Johnson County Community College (Kansas) Institutional Research Office. It includes pragmatic suggestions concerning research design and research problems which are incorporated into discussions of research questions, reporting data,…

The paper discusses problems faced by policy makers in utilizing social science research in decision making on educational issues and problems. The term social science research is interpreted as including both educational evaluation and educational research. The history of social science research and critical issues associated with social science…

An argument is made against the use of school averages as composition measures by documenting the non-random nature of peer associations and by presenting evidence that different students are influenced by different reference groups. The structure of friendship associations among some 20,000 students in the McDill Twenty High School Sample is…

This paper presents a discussion of issues raised in the evaluation of Project Follow Through reported by Abt Associates. The paper suggests that many of the problems inherent in the design of both the program and the evaluation stem from the underlying assumption that one educational model could be found which would best alleviate the educational…

A broad search of the scientifically relevant literature on television and human behavior began in the fall of 1973 and extended over a year; the search concentrated on the literature since 1960, although it attempted to include all significant earlier works. In addition, special emphasis was placed on obtaining very recent, hard to locate, and…

An attempt is made here to trace the development of Coleman's research reports and public statements. Several critical evaluations of this work are then reviewed, including one the authors have carried out. It is suggested the overall research suggests six generalizations: there has been an enormous, long term trend of whites leaving the central…

This study was intended as a pilot project to design a method and computerized system for collecting, analyzing, and reporting information about the degree to which students in career occupational programs achieve their objective of attaining marketable skills. First, the 4,895 students enrolled in the 52 career education programs at Miami-Dade…

Although planning theory is regarded as an analysis of the relationship of knowledge to action by many theories, a view from the poor and minority strata of this society suggests a different alternative--that planning theory is an analysis of the relationship of "knowledge" to inaction, particularly with regard to the continuation of deteriorating…

This paper addresses two major issues: (1) how research will affect social policy in areas of life that relate to women; and (2) what research questions can provide the information required to promote positive changes in social policy. It sketches a rough outline of the central questions within each major area, to indicate some of the work that…

Subjective culture is a human group's characteristic way of perceiving the man-made part of its environment. It includes the group's model attitudes, norms, values, and roles. The study of subjective culture is likely to make a contribution to our understanding of the way various groups in any culture interact with members of other groups. The…

The paper describes an unacknowledged artifact that may confound experimental evaluations of innovations. The paper hypothesizes that control group members (teachers, pupils, etc.) perceiving the consequences of an innovation as threatening to their job, salary, status, or traditional patterns of working, may perform atypically and confound the…