The purpose of this study is to develop and demonstrate the use of a conceptual framework for assessing the potential of "world view" as a concept for understanding important issues in science education. The framework is based on Stephen C. Pepper's treatment of six world hypotheses (animism, mysticism, formism, mechansim, contextualism, and…

A set of textbooks used in grades one through six was analyzed to determine the degree of social realism in the books. Results indicated that the selected set of textbooks was socially realistic, reflecting the diversity of cultures that exists in the United States. The texts contained stories that pictured whites, blacks, and other minorities in…

Publishers have responded to calls for more minority characters and females in basal readers, but many of the changes appear superficial. (MKM)

The effect of test content based on Black and White cultures was examined for Black and White subjects on items from the American College Test. No significant interactions between test content and examinee performance by race were found. (Author/CTM)

Results of a study by the American College of Veterinary Pathologists to investigate mechanisms to facilitate sharing of audiovisual programs include a content analysis in veterinary pathology, a guidebook for the preparation of instruction, 20 instructional programs, a lesson evaluation mechanism, and a proposal for sharing programs. (JMD)

The authors examined the effects of school finance reforms on equality of educational opportunities in several states, analyzing court cases in California, New York, and Illinois, and suggest that reform policies may not work as their designers intended. Illinois was used as a case study in constructing tests to measure school finance reform…

Thirty physical education students and 30 music education students read a passage which could be given two distinct interpretations. Multiple-choice test scores, theme-revealing disambiguations and instrusions in free recall indicate that high-level schemata provide the interpretive framework for comprehending discourse. Schema theory and its…

A discussion of the development, final content, and uses of fifteen commercial reading programs is presented. (MKM)

Gives reasons for using "anti-utopian" texts in foreign language teaching. Shows how Orwell's "1984" can be used to make clear the significance of history, language, education, sex and love, and mass manipulation, and of how fictional texts deliver their message. Practical teaching suggestions are given. (Text is in German.)…

Presents a copy of a ship's manifest from 1847 and describes five learning activities to help students identify and organize information found in the document. Students answer questions about the ship's passengers based on information given in the manifest, draw conclusions about immigration in mid-nineteenth century, and write a family history…

The analyses of 17 secondary school science programs are based on searches of the instructional design of the products. The expected results, scope, methodology, and means of evaluation are analyzed and then explored for congruency. Basic descriptive information and other factors thought to be important are included. (Author/MLF)

Describes different methods used to represent learning schemata with an emphasis on the clues for effective instruction that can be found in both the process of representing and the representation produced. It is argued that all representations offer direct or indirect suggestions for organizing instruction and student learning. (RP)

Analyzes causal relationships among newspaper coverage of community issues, public concerns about them, and evaluations of related government services. Shows that amount of newspaper coverage was related to higher levels of concern about community issues and poorer evaluations of government services. Indicates (through time-series analysis) a…

Presents description of the Generalized Automatic Text Organization and Retrieval system (GATOR), a database system that indexes and retrieves information from machine-readable texts such as interviews and case histories. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are discussed, and integrating GATOR with standard statistical packages is described.…

Analyzes the content of stories in several basal reading systems widely used in primary grade reading instruction, in terms of the relative frequency of main characters who are elderly, the quality of characterizations of elderly characters, the incidence of aging themes, and incidental references to aging or the elderly. Indicates few positive…