A study explored rates of learning and political interest among students in the "Introduction to American Government" course at a community college. The study was sparked by calls for program review and outcomes assessment that are commonplace on contemporary American campuses. The study featured a pretest/posttest methodology and…

This paper describes a program implemented by Tennessee Technological University that provided a science enrichment program for disadvantaged and minority high school feamles in the rural areas surrounding the university and from inner city schools of Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. This model is based on a similar program that was…

The content validation method was used to develop a scale for measuring attitudes toward and knowledge about the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) for college students. The developed instrument, the Attitudes toward AIDS Scale (ATAS) consisted of a knowledge scale and an attitudes scale, each with 25 items chosen by a pool of AIDS…

Cognitive changes in college students from early in the freshman year to the end of the sophomore year were assessed using a pretest-posttest design. In all, 135 university students completed both a pretest and a posttest. The academic achievement measure used was the College Basic Academic Subjects Examination (CBASE), a test intended to assess…

The study investigated the role of a second language (L2) learner's prior cultural knowledge in target language lexical meaning-making. Comparison focuses on what important similarities in L2 lexical meaning-making of culturally loaded words appear among learners with the same ethnic background, and what important lexical meaning differences exist…

This report examines how students, especially those with high abilities, choose a college based on information from four areas: (1) published research comparing various schools' subjects as well as some unpublished comparative data from various sources; (2) young adult fiction that deals with issues related to college choice; (3) media accounts of…

This document reports the results of a study of the extent to which civics education and other factors contribute to student political knowledge. In particular, the research focused on how much the civics curriculum, student background, demographics, home environment, and individual student achievement affect 12th graders' awareness of government…

How a multimedia program that employs concept maps and hypertext for teaching "Hamlet" facilitated comprehension in an undergraduate course is described. Results suggest factors that instructional designers should take into account to improve learning. Thirty-six upper-division college students were enrolled in a course on Shakespeare at…

Three learning modules are described and investigated as they reflect different students' conceptions of and approaches to learning. The Schoolwork Module (SWM) focuses on task performance and involves a passive, incremental, piecemeal, and rote memory method of learning, parallel to what might be implied by the Information Processing model of…

A study was done to test four hypotheses on the orientation of American Urban Administrators toward cultural diversity management in the public sector workplace. The study sought to test: (1) the extent of familiarity with the literature on cultural diversity; (2) relative ranking of cultural diversity management capabilities; (3) how women and…

This paper describes Project SPECIAL TOPIC, which developed a preservice graduate training program at Central Michigan University for preparing related services personnel in the area of school counseling with special emphasis on special education needs. Two complete training cycles have been completed with a total of 22 full-time graduate students…

The use of computer assisted instruction in teaching statistical concepts was studied. Students enrolled in classes in education who lacked statistical experience participated. Knowledge questions for pretest and posttest assessments were prepared from a pool of questions used in the statistics department of the College of Education at Virginia…

Gifted underachievers (n=108) were compared to gifted high achievers (n=96). All children had Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R) IQ scores of 130 or greater, but underachievers were performing at or below the 50th percentile in at least one major area of achievement, whereas high achievers were at the 96th percentile or…

This philosophical and empirical investigation explored whether cognitive skills can be acquired in a workplace setting. A preliminary investigation looked at views of knowledge in liberal humanism where knowledge is a matter for individuals with transcendent minds with objects of knowledge being matters for which there is clear perceptual…

In conjunction with Public Law 101-476, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Head Start programs are committed to including children with disabilities as 10 percent of their student population. This study sought to determine the effects of training on Head Start providers' attitudes toward children with disabilities and their knowledge…