The first part of this report contains a case study from each of the eight southern states participating in a late 1970s project which focused primarily on the organization of rural counties for making decisions that affect the well-being of county residents. In the second section, the study counties (identified as low income in 1950) are placed…

Aspects of colleges that were important to parents of high school seniors for the process of selecting a college were assessed in a 1978-79 survey. A sample of parents of high school seniors who had combined Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test scores of 100 or greater and who were residents of six metropolitan areas in the United States were…

Retirement plans of older participants of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) were surveyed. Questionnaires were mailed to a random sample of 2,260 participants aged 59-69, and 1,438 returns served as the base for data analysis. This group was 62 percent male and 38 percent female; 48 percent…

This paper stresses the need for consumer education programs which reflect social changes and which will be relevant in the future. Specifically, it explores ways in which educators can develop and implement consumer education programs which stress quality of life, simplified lifestyles, and changing American consumption habits. Quality of life is…

As one of four volumes in a K-12 series, this teaching guide contains classroom and outdoor activities pertaining to the environment and energy for seventh through ninth grades. The guide was developed based upon the understanding that environmental education can serve as an instructional umbrella covering many topics (conservation, marine…

A detailed description is provided of the variable individualization of instructional decisions (IDM), which is part of the analysis in phase I of the Evaluation of Practices in Individualized Schooling. The variable is defined; the questionnaires on which the variable is based are listed; the procedures used to scale the variable are explained;…

The major purposes of this study were (1) to determine the congruence between perceived actual and desired frequency and extent of participation by teachers in the decision-making process; (2) to relate decision participation to teachers' job satisfaction; (3) to relate selected personal and situational variables to decisional participation; and…

The availability of evening and weekend baccalaureate degree credit courses and factors that discourage institutions from introducing or expanding such courses were investigated through a fast response survey that was sent to a national sample of universities and other four-year colleges. Among the findings are the following: almost three-fourths…

Proceedings of the 1980 annual forum of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) on the topics of meeting the challenges of the eighties by redirecting resources for renewal are presented. Contents include the following addresses: "Planning: An Adaptive Process," by Barbara S. Uehling; "Catastrophe Models in…

The complex process of developing Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and the placing of handicapped students is discussed. The IEP is developed by the school administrator, the child's teachers, and the child's parents. A model of an efficient system for implementing an IEP is described. The basis of the model is the collection and coding by…

A questionnaire survey of 180 Texas school district superintendents sought to determine both their perceptions of how community power structures influenced school board decisions and their techniques for communicating with their local power structure. The study analyzed four power structure types--monopolistic, multigroup noncompetitive,…

The relationship of the state coordinating agency with the governor, the general assembly, and higher education institutions is addressed in relation to meeting budget needs for colleges and universities. Specific reference is also made to the state of Arkansas. It is suggested that the state coordinating agency should be in the position to be…

The decisions made by admissions committee members of the Medical College of Virginia were studied to determine the criteria used to arrive at value judgments and to analyze variations in predicted ratings based on these criteria. All 983 applicants to the 1980-81 entering class of the medical school who underwent file review evaluations (the…

Faculty career changes through retirement, a move to another institution, or a move to nonacademic employment were examined through interviews with 134 faculty members who had left Pennsylvania State University, a multi-campus research university. The research design incorporated the concept of "social information processing" (Pfeffer,…

Models that have appeared in the student attrition literature in the past decade and behavioral models from the social sciences that may help explain the dropout process are examined, and an attempt is made to synthesize a causal model of student attrition. The models of Tinto, Spady, and Rootman in the area of student attrition, and models of…