In a continuation of research on the technical labor force that was initiated in 1990 at a large northeastern university, professionalism among technical workers was examined from an emic perspective. (Emics are conceptual strategies that explain phenomena in terms meaningful to the people being studied, whereas etics explain phenomena in terms…

The 1980s saw a dramatic change in the use of leisure as millions of Americans turned to vacations that emphasized exploration, learning, and renewed awareness of the natural world. The first part of this three-part sourcebook lists approximately 270 institutions, organizations, and businesses offering programs in outdoor education, environmental…

A study focused on ways in which literature might be used to support the literacy learning of English language learners in classrooms of diversity where a number of cultures and mother tongues were represented. The framework guiding the study (as in earlier work) is based on a sociocognitive view on literacy where literacy learning is socially…

The Phoenix Indian School served as a coeducational, federal educational institution for American Indian primary and secondary students between 1891 and 1990. Covering 10 blocks and enrolling over 600 Indian children aged 8-18, this boarding school used education to assimilate students into Anglo-American culture. This monograph describes…

Laboratory simulations combine the strengths of lab experiments and field studies while avoiding many of their liabilities. They permit the emotional involvement, the time needed for development of norms and interlocked systems of interaction, and the broad range of variables typical of field settings, yet allow for experimental controls and…

Describes a project using an interdisciplinary approach to environmental education in which students studied a broad-leaved woodland area and an area in the Great Swamp National Wildlife refuge. (BR)

The Enright Arithmetic Program is a diagnostic-prescriptive program designed to facilitate an effective remedial effort. The program is based on establishing for each student the set of skills that student needs to learn and also identifies the error pattern causing the student's current failure. Practice materials for each needed skill are…

A formally conducted field study was used to investigate the work of vice-principals of eight large Southern California high schools and the relationship of their work to the school as an organization. Most of the vice-principals studied deal with student discipline, but four have important discipline responsibilities, which they exercise by…

Commencing as a reasonably funded research and development enterprise, the Regional Educational Laboratory Program has become an undercapitalized knowledge transfer operation, an "information utility," responsible for improving schools but constrained by inadequate funds and restrictive policies which confine the labs to working…

This document reports an evaluation of the orientation program in Australia for hosted Year Program students. Qualitative and quantitative data were used in the evaluation. The techniques included on-site observation of the orientation and interviews with 141 participants and 23 staff members from 12 countries. Although no written goals were…

Perspectives concerning a field-based inquiry approach to medical education are offered. This approach requires that inquiry tactics more closely match educational and clinical processes. Assumptions about naturalistic and quasi-experimental educational research are considered that indicate a common field-based approach to inquiry. Parallel…

With a view towards finding out whether teachers' practices were consistent with core American values, a field study investigated the interactions of four day care teachers and the children in their charge. Six months of participant observation led to the conceptualization of four features of teachers' schooling action accounting for their…

A review of the rationale and application of formative evaluation in a curriculum development context, this presentation focused on a formative evaluation model designed and field tested through recent industrial education curriculum research and development efforts. In reviewing the rationale for formative evaluation a distinction between…

This paper describes the use of the ethnographer's perspective in applying research knowledge to the improvement of educational practice. The Documentation and Technical Assistance Project (DTA) uses ethnographic methods to study problem solving in urban public schools. In the complicated culture of the urban school, social, economic and political…

This report contains the field plan and implementation procedures which were utilized for the observational/focused ethnographic component of Head Start's Child and Family Mental Health (CFMH) Evaluation Project. The introductory section of the document provides the reader with an overview of the Head Start program, its mental health goals, the…