A study explicated the process used to assess the general education component of the undergraduate curriculum at a public urban university with about 6,000 undergraduates. Emphasis was placed on the components of the methodology that provided data useful for suggesting changes to the program and the aspects of the process that did not yield viable…

This paper describes the development and application of a 13-item survey to be completed by college students of their graduate teaching assistants'(GTAs) communication abilities. Survey results evaluating 114 native and non-native English speaking GTAs (217 sections, 4,651 students) were analyzed. Results indicated that nine GTAs (8 percent) were…

This paper describes the transfer of skills and knowledge from the classroom to outside the classroom. The action research focused on transfer, how to facilitate transfer, and why to concentrate on transfer, and it included a definition for the different levels and rates of transfer. Seventh and eighth grade students were not using existing…

This study examined how diversity influenced law students' educational experiences. Predominantly White students at Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan Law School, as well as at five other law schools, completed surveys that examined such topics as: frequency of contact with diverse people growing up and in high school, college, and…

This is an Executive Summary for "Citizenship and Education in Twenty-eight Countries: Civic Knowledge and Engagement at Age Fourteen," the first report of the results of the second phase of the Civic Education Study conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The Executive Summary briefly…

This study examines the relationship between college student alcohol use and the construct of social responsibility. For purposes of the study, alcohol use was defined by average number of drinks a week and frequency of binge drinking; social responsibility was defined by employment, marriage, living with children, living with parents, and hours…

A 2003 review of the literature shows a lack of formal institutional research focusing on the development of critical thinking as a situated experience--occurring in a specific context with a complex set of dynamics. Rather, much of the emphasis has been on learning outcomes as measured by various psychometric-approaches or an instructor's…

This is the report on part-time study in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) for Universities UK and GuildHE (previously SCOP) from Nigel Brown Associates. It forms Strand 2 of the wider research into part-time higher education commissioned by Universities UK and GuildHE using quantitative data not available from published sources and…

Merit aid, a discount to college costs contingent upon academic performance, is nothing new. Colleges and private organizations have long rewarded high-achieving, college-bound high school students with scholarships. While merit aid has a long history in the private sector, it has not played a major role in the public sector. At the state level,…

A nationally representative sample of eighth-graders were first surveyed in the spring of 1988. A sample of these respondents were then resurveyed through four follow-ups in 1990, 1992, 1994, and 2000. On the questionnaire, students reported on a range of topics including: school, work, and home experiences; educational resources and support; the…

The first High School and Beyond follow-up survey, conducted in 1982, included sub-samples of 29,737 sophomore cohort and 11,995 senior cohort representatives from the base year survey samples. During the fall of 1982, nearly 18,500 of the sophomore cohort members selected for the first follow-up survey were subsampled for the High School and…

Describes a study done in Washington Community and Technical Colleges of incumbent workers, who are employed students who attend community colleges for job-related training. Findings show that the wages earned by incumbent workers following their training are less a function of credit hours earned than personal characteristics such as age, gender…

This study compared psychometric results on the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-II for 187 children and adolescents with mental retardation and 372 intellectually average students. The schedule demonstrated sound psychometric properties for both samples. Mentally retarded subjects scored significantly higher than the comparison sample, and their…

Describes development of the School Culture Inventory (SCI). Interviews of staff, parents, and students in three high-performing secondary schools in British Columbia identified common attitudes and values related to organizational culture, which were then used to construct student, parent, and teacher surveys comprising the SCI. Pilot testing…

The Short Acculturation Scale for Hispanic Youth (SASH-Y) was used to assess acculturation among 137 fourth- and fifth-grade children in rural southern Colorado, including 11 Mexican, 33 Mexican American, and 93 Euro-American children. The SASH-Y, especially questions related to language use, was found to be robust with a young, rural Latino…