This report summarizes input from a communication panel of four State Directors of Special Education and one state staff member who helped develop an instrument for determining to what extent administrative, discretionary, and flow-through funds of Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act were being used to support school reform…

This Interview Guide provides a framework for gathering information necessary to design individualized community-based services and supports based upon the needs and desires of persons with developmental disabilities. It is not designed to be a functional assessment or a clinical evaluation, but rather a more informal and relaxed approach to…

This double issue of the "ZPG Reporter" focuses on the theme of ZPG's Children's Stress Index", the first national survey of children's well-being based on population- related pressures. Using an extensive list of social, economic, and environmental factors that affect the lives of children, the index ranks 828 cities, counties, and…

This abstract and outline for a workshop explore the use of focus groups in evaluation. Cerritos College in Norwalk (California) conducted a series of focus groups to evaluate a new matriculation program. A focus group is a technique often used in marketing research to explore a specific topic. It is a group interview conducted in a casual setting…

In order to determine what constraints lead students to enroll in television-based courses, personal interviews were conducted in the fall of 1989 with students enrolled in at least one telecourse at four institutions, i.e., Governors State University in Illinois, Northern Virginia Community College, Memphis State University in Tennessee, and the…

The Peace Education Commission (PEC), a subgroup of the IPRA (The International Peace Research Association), was established to facilitate international cooperation among individuals interested in peace education and research related to peace education. PEC is coordinated by a Council and an Executive Secretary (at present Ake Bjerstedt). The full…

In Western Australia the suspension rate for Aboriginal students is double what could be expected on a population basis, and their exclusion rate is over seven times higher. In schools in Western Australia the act of removal from the classroom is widely practiced, and the process has been formalized to shift responsibility from the teachers to the…

The focus of this study is the effects of a School Improvement Plan (SIP) on an urban elementary school. The school's regular education teachers were required to participate in one of five committees designed to prepare the SIP, which specified goals for improvement and the strategies for reaching them. Classroom observations were used by the…

California Assembly Bill 922 was signed into law as an urgency measure in October 1995. It assigned responsibility for expelled students to counties and school districts. This report is the first of a series of evaluation reports that will be disseminated on programs implemented in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to satisfy the…

This microethnographic study examined the perspectives of paraprofessionals assisting students with disabilities in inclusive educational settings. Extensive open-ended individual interviews were conducted with 10 educational technicians from 10 different schools in Maine. Demographic data on paraprofessionals in Maine were also analyzed. The…

This study examined the views held by five teachers in an adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program concerning their processes of curriculum implementation in a Canadian immigrant program, focusing on how the teachers assess their own autonomy over curriculum decision-making. Data were gathered in a series of interviews, in which key themes…

During summer 1989, 30 Hispanic American (15 female, 15 male) and 34 African American (17 female, 17 male) adolescents and young adults from Detroit (Michigan) participated in face-to-face interviews designed to identify condom beliefs that may influence condom use in young minority populations. Also of interest were AIDS knowledge, the…

In many advertising programs, students spend a great deal of time coming up with creative strategies, writing copy, and preparing layouts based on objectives provided by a client (or professor) and directed to an already established target market. Seldom, however, do students learn firsthand about the advertising decision making on the part of…

Case studies of six public libraries that have adopted the concept of long range, community-based planning were conducted to explore what actually happens in natural settings as public libraries implement long range planning, and to document the differences that exist among these settings in process, goals, implementation, participant perceptions,…

The constant comparative method of B. G. Glaser and A. L. Strauss (1967) of qualitative data analysis is illustrated using data from a study that investigated the knowledge and beliefs of four preservice secondary school mathematics teachers. Data sources included interviews, observations, a written instrument, and artifacts. Data analysis…