The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 shifts decision-making authority for funding of local job training programs from the federal government to state and local boards, which will need local decision-making tools to inform policy. One such tool is a method proposed by S. Goetz and D. Debertin to estimate demand for educational attainment at the…

Developed for use in small groups, this unit focuses on developing skills pupils need if they are to progress from Level 3 to Level 4 in English of England's National Standards. It is meant to supplement, but not to replace, the English curriculum for Year 7 pupils. The unit is intended for Level 3 pupils working towards Level 4. It sets out to…

Adapted for whole class use, this unit focuses on developing skills pupils need if they are to progress from Level 3 to Level 4 in English of England's National Standards. It is meant to supplement, but not to replace, the English curriculum for Year 7 pupils. The unit is intended for Level 3 pupils working towards Level 4. It sets out to develop…

Two experiments on children's inferences and associative memory provided a supportive test of fuzzy-trace theory. Results indicated that false recognition of associated instances with delay declined for all children, and categorical inferences increased for older children. Verbatim memory and inferences were uncorrelated under short delay but…

Describes an activity which allows students with a range of abilities to become involved in data analysis and informal inference while working in self-selected small group environments. Enables students to explore their own resources for asking questions. (DDR)

This follow-up study of a classroom experiment with university English-as-a-Second-Language students that demonstrated incidental acquisition of new lexical knowledge through the reading of thematically-related texts explores how vocabulary knowledge may be acquired as a by-product of reading for comprehension. Findings are interpreted in terms of…

Three experiments explored the conditions under which inductive inferences about people were made by children and adults. Results indicated that children often predicted that people would behave differently in the future than they did in the past. Younger children limited predictions of consistency to non-psychological events. Older children…

Presents ways adults can support children's emotional competence development in preschool and elementary school through helping them express thoughts, feelings, and opinions verbally and in writing. Suggestions include a game to help children learn to infer feelings and a "comfort corner" for children having social/emotional difficulties. Includes…

Argues that the syntactic and mental model accounts of the suppression effect in deductive reasoning are inadequate. Proposes a relative salience model. Describes a test of predictions from this model in a suppression model, which obtained evidence of convergent validity for the salience construct. Results could not be reconciled with either the…

Suggests activities using large samples to simulate quality control processes in industry (specifically, manufacturing camera film). A series of small-group activities investigate the relationship of sample size to percent defective in batch sampling. Efficiency, cost of sampling, company reputation, and public relations are business factors…

Attempts to demonstrate how recipient design can structure an interaction. Choices of words and phrases, intonation, and the larger structure of the discourse itself are all made with a greater or lesser awareness of others' reactions. Evidence of how recipient design is at the service of altercasting is found in shared knowledge, agreement, and…

Describes an exercise designed to introduce basic concepts and techniques for a course in qualitative research methods. Discusses differences in the meaning of phrases on a student evaluation of teaching form. Suggests that the exercise will show how differences in meaning are connected to real social and political problems. (DK)

This third in a series of articles on work conducted at the Texas Center for Educational Technology and the University of North Texas focuses on research designs for teachers to determine the impact of technology in the classroom. Highlights include research and the scientific method; qualitative versus quantitative research; and statistical…

This study found that 61 children (ages 8-12) with specific language impairment performed more poorly on a comprehension task in which children were questioned about a story, even after taking into account "comprehension age." The effects of mode of presentation (orally or pictorially) and question type were similar for subjects and controls.…

Discussion of knowledge maps focuses on a study at Texas Christian University that was conducted to determine the effects of scripted cooperation in a hypermap environment. Hypermap and hypertext versions of MacStat--the software for univariate statistics that was used in the study--are described, and performance measures are explained. (17…