This paper summarizes a symposium on issues in rural education held at the 1996 European Conference on Educational Research held in Seville, Spain. The symposium aimed to gather contextual information about rural primary schools and included presentations from researchers in Sweden, Finland, Scotland, Ireland, and Greece. Participants from the…

The Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University instituted a distance education Master's degree program enrolling over 60 students at sites throughout Utah. Initial funding for the program was provided by Utah's Higher Education Technology Initiative (HETI). This report is part of an ongoing effort to provide feedback to the…

This handbook provides an overview of research in the field of educational communications and technology. The handbook may be used to familiarize students and researchers with a domain of research in this field prior to their own research, or may be used as a guide for selecting research topics or methodologies. The book consists of 42 papers by…

The product of nearly 20 years experience in the early childhood field, this book gives current and intending practitioners a better understanding of the nature of leadership in the early childhood profession and its effect on the professionalization of the field. It explores who is or can become a leader and why early childhood leaders are in a…

The Opportunities Program is a collaboration between the Illinois state welfare program and the City Colleges of Chicago to educate/train welfare recipients in short-term programs. A review of the research identified these effective student retention strategies: student support, high quality instruction, and remediation. A review of research on…

This paper recommends that rural education researchers adopt an ecological approach that acknowledges both family and community influences on child development and school outcomes. Although rural researchers have generated useful information about children, few studies have provided a full portrayal of rural children's lives. A fundamental…

Case studies of focus groups as a useful educational research strategy for evaluating noninstructional interventions are described. Focus groups were used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs in the following Virginia school settings: (1) peer counseling programs in 4 high schools with 49 student counselors; (2) gifted programs in 7…

A study reviewed nonformal education provided by community organizations, particularly that for women, in the Western Cape (South Africa). It was set against a background of the struggle against apartheid and women's special needs and interests. The interview schedule included open-ended and structured questions and was designed to elicit details…

The theme of this convention was the impact of policy changes on practices in early childhood education worldwide, and particularly in New Zealand. Nine keynote addresses considered issues relevant to early childhood education. A total of 53 papers presented at the convention discussed: (1) cultural issues in early childhood education; (2)…

Teaching of computer programming in elementary and secondary schools has become a very popular activity. The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze the empirical research on the benefits of learning computer programming on students' cognition abilities. The paper focuses on the question: Do the skills of computer programming transfer to…

This paper examines how the United States is portrayed in Norwegian textbooks. U.S. history receives rather brief treatment in most Norwegian history textbooks. Norwegian students learn about the United States largely in their studies of English. A chapter-by-chapter examination of the treatment of the United States in two English textbooks…

This overview examines the major research studies on Catholic schools published between 1965 and 1991 along with a synthesis of the research regarding the demography, outcomes, and environment of Catholic schools, and of the teachers, parents, and students associated with Catholic schools. The research showed that student from Catholic schools…

A study examined adaptations made prior to or during the adoption of the Training and Visit (T&V) extension system. This system was developed in Turkey, based on the Israeli experience of the developer, and was further refined in India. It was later adopted by many countries in Southeast Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world. Experience…

To examine the relationship among the Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS), Educational Orientation Questionnaire (EOQ), and Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory (PAEI), the three instruments were administered to 111 graduate adult education students. The instruments had similar purposes: PAEI measured philosophical orientation relative to…

Definitions and short explanations of key concepts in the field of instructional evaluation are presented. Evaluation is defined as the process of determining the value of programs, projects, materials, and personnel. It is distinguished from research in that the aims of research are less time- and situation-specific, attempting to uncover…