This project was part of the Portland High Impact Program and had as its goal a 60 percent reduction in burglary losses over a three-year period to be attained by installing centrally-monitored, silent, anti-intrusion devices in eleven schools. Comparison with eleven control schools indicates that the alarm system has demonstrated effectiveness in…

A community impact study for Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC) was conducted to generate data for institutional planning, management, and evaluation. Specifically, the study involved learning how well KVCC was achieving its stated goals relative to career advancement, personal development, and recreational enjoyment; determining general…

The effects of instruction in critical thinking are investigated, using instructional materials based on a theoretical model of critical thinking. The model emphasized the role of concepts and processes in responding to instances of valid and invalid reasoning, argument, and evidence. Instruction focused on eight cognitive operations:…

The major objectives in the establishment of a clinic in a department of psychology are to provide a setting for clinical training and for clinical research. Five issues must be considered in order to evaluate a departmental clinic effectively. First, there should be prior specification of objectives and periodic restatement of goals that include…

The 11 items in this annotated bibliography are entries in the ERIC system concerning studies of school effectiveness and the debate surrounding how much influence schools have over student learning. Several articles included reexamine the 1966 Coleman report, and one compares a more recent Coleman report with the earlier report. A number of…

Prepared to introduce adult education program planners to the basic concepts integral to and alternative strategies for conducting needs assessments, this instructional handbook consists of a series of six chapters or instructional booklets (also available separately--see note.) Topics covered in each chapter are as follows: introduction to needs…

This study examined whether the intensive time-series design would yield data discriminating between concrete and formal operational students and whether achievement curves exhibited in previous studies would be found with students in this study. Daily measurement of variables is characteristic of the data collection procedure in the time-series…

This monograph is one in a series of semiannual reports on research related to reading in secondary schools. The six papers in the monograph deal with the following topics: (1) the effect of reading level on the retention of propositions by secondary school remedial reading students; (2) the ambiguity of the term "significance" in research, which…

Using a sample of 276 families living in Syracuse, New York, this study examined the effects of different ecological contexts (i.e., the workplace, the neighborhood, and personal social networks) on the effectiveness of the family as a child-rearing system. Following an introductory overview (Chapter I) of the study's objectives and its…

A detailed description is provided of the variable allocated learning time (ALT), 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 distribution of…

A model for forecasting postsecondary enrollment, the PDEM-1, is considered, which combines the traditional with a cross-pressure impact decision-making model. The model is considered in relation to its background, assumptions, survey instrument, model conception, applicability to educational environments, and implementation difficulties. The…

Undergraduate course syllabi on law enforcement, courts-law, corrections, and general criminal justice-criminology were assessed, based on 759 usable submissions from 193 junior, community, and senior colleges and universities. Based on the analysis, a set of syllabi to represent the core of a criminal justice curriculum was constructed. Course…

Part of a year-long sociolinguistic study of teacher and pupil perceptions of classroom discourse, this study focused on the following methodological question: how might the approach selected for analysis of language as a linguistic system affect what is learned about language in a given social situation? Subjects were 165 children and their…

A study was conducted to compare the effects of three career guidance methods on eleventh graders' career exploratory and decision-making behaviors. The study involved 66 volunteers (reduced by attrition to 48) who attended one of three six-hour, one-day sessions: guided field trips; cognitive decision-making training; or behavioral…

The organizational climate of Southeast Missouri State University was assessed as part of an institutional self-study, and the appropriateness and effectiveness of the research instrument were evaluated. Twenty-five characteristics identified by Likert (1961, 1967) as descriptive of highly effective work groups were used as a framework for the…