This unit provides high school students with criteria for deciding to buy a new or used car and selecting a reputable dealer. It is divided into three sections. In the first section students analyze uses and identify car sizes, options, and appearances that are important. The second section describes advantages and disadvantages of new and used…

Debates and policies in the late 1950s and early 1960s regarding the United States-Soviet space race are described in this paper, and an analysis is presented of press coverage of President John F. Kennedy's public statements regarding space technology and exploration. The first sections of the paper present a selected space chronology from 1957…

Alternative mathematical models for scoring and decision making with criterion referenced tests are described, especially as they concern appropriate test length and methods of establishing statistically valid cutting scores. Several of these approaches are reviewed and compared on formal-analytic and empirical grounds: (1) Block's approach to…

Harcum Junior College (Pennsylvania) continuously engages in institutional self-study through its comprehensive Institutional Research (IR) program. The IR Office conducts both decision-oriented research, where the problem is defined by the decision-maker, and conclusion-oriented research, where the items studied are selected by the researcher.…

This paper discusses the problems and issues involved in the organizational structure of the National Laboratory on Early Childhood Education. The National Laboratory, which consisted of a coordination center and six university based research and development centers, was organized for the purpose of planning, sponsoring and conducting research and…

AFTHER, a computer simulation game for dealing with the complexities of higher education in a changing electronic world, is described. It is a tool for decision research and decision assistance. AFTHER enables the users to study higher education governance and its decision-making patterns in general, or to readily convert the simulation to an…

This report addressed to policy making officials in local government deals with the role of federal assistance in future developments of information systems by local governments through an assessment of the Urban Information Systems Inter-Agency Committee (USAC) Program, which, beginning in 1970, provided grants to five municipalities--Charlotte,…

This guide is designed to help elementary and secondary school teachers and curriculum developers plan units on the future. It is presented in five sections. Section I discusses the origins of the modern futures movement and the concepts of future studies, time dimensions, global approach, self-fulfilling and self-defeating forecasts, and types of…

Educators can help people adjust to rapid and continual social change by borrowing techniques developed in the field of futuristics. Specifically, educators can encourage people to think about and react to projected changes. Futuristics (the field of study concerned with systematic study of the future using a wide range of disciplines) is based on…

Administrators from 32 public two-year community colleges were surveyed to reveal the extent to which Management by Objectives (MBO) programs affected organizational conditions; 200 questionnaires (71%) were returned. Approximately 65% of the administrators indicated that the MBO system did not change the amount of formal contact between superior…

Budgetmaking and bargaining are central resource allocation processes in schools; this study examines how they affect one another. Ethnoscientific techniques were applied in nine Illinois school systems. The results were analyzed to show the flow of the decision process and construction of detailed plans of action. The structure and power…

Based on the premise that the major emphasis in population education should be on the development of problem analysis and values clarification, the manual offers guidelines for program evaluation. It consists of eight chapters. Chapter I discusses the nature of educational research and in-school and out-of-school population programs. Chapter II…

This study examines how much organizational theories can be applied to understanding schools. According to one organizational theory, certain pressures can force an organization to use more sophisticated methods of coordination. In a school, this would mean that staff and parents would be forced to work together to find ways to deal with…

A study was conducted to develop a cost management control procedure to assist Navy managers in making decisions about initial training development and implementation in surface ship acquisition programs. Objectives were (1) develop and illustrate a cost management control procedure for centralized collection, storage, and control of cost data for…

THIS TECHNICAL NOTE IS A NONTECHNICAL DISCUSSION OF THE URBAN EDUCATION MODEL, AN ANALYTIC, SYMOBLIC MODEL TO BE USED IN PLANNING THE LOCATION AND ENROLLMENT SIZE OF URBAN SCHOOLS. AMONG THE EDUCATIONAL ALTERNATIVES THAT MAY BE CONSIDERED BY THE METHODOLOGY PRESENTED ARE THE "GREAT HIGH SCHOOLS" AND THE "EDUCATIONAL PARKS." THE…