To see whether the subject matter of magazines of general circulation and the subject matter of public concern coincide, a study examined the volume of coverage of United States-Soviet relations, communism, and issues of nuclear warfare between the two nations in twentieth century popular magazines. The "Reader's Guide to Periodical…

The validation of Tennessee's Pre-Professional Skills Tests (PPST) is described. Panels of experts from teacher education institutions and local school districts performed the test item review, focusing on test validity and minimum requirements for admission to teacher education programs. Participants (136 teacher educators, 108 high school…

To help community college reading teachers be aware of the connectives (conjunctions that join other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences) used in textbooks, a study was undertaken to find out which connectives appeared in a sample of 18 textbooks and which were used in the textbooks for three different subject areas--social science, physical…

A content analysis was conducted for all 60 programs of ThinkAbout, an instructional television series designed to strengthen the reasoning skills of fifth and sixth graders and to review and reinforce language arts, mathematics, and study skills. The study comprised separate analyses of three concerns: (1) demographic characteristics of…

One of the key arguments for problem-based learning as a holistic, learner centred pedagogical method rests on the premise it addresses multiple facets of learner development rather than decontextualised, content related learning outcomes. Fostering meta-cognitive ability in an attempt to develop self regulatory, autonomous learning habits is an…

Online collaborative learning has typically been studied within the context of learning communities. Little is known about the potential influence of students' personalities on online communication, group interaction, and task engagement among members of a learning community. This study used a mixed-method, triangulation design, involving the…

Defining practical significance in program evaluations is a difficult measurement problem which can only be solved by an intimate familiarity with the measures on which effects are estimated and their content relationship to the program goals. Past attempts to provide general solutions to the size of effect problem have relied on standardized…

This document describes research which examined the principles of reward and punishment applied to certain types of behavior portrayed by characters illustrated in 30 school readers. It was hypothesized that certain portrayed values, which have political connotations, are being transmitted to young people through the indirect method of…

Prepared as part of a project designed to provide an objectively measured indication of the quality of student writing in one school district, this paper examines argumentative and narrative essays written by students at the fifth, eighth, and twelfth grade levels. The first section of the paper discusses the primary analysis of student writing…

Prepared as part of an evaluation report of a junior high school course in moral education (Skills for Ethical Action, SEA), this volume describes course implementation, acceptability, and effectiveness on a lesson by lesson basis. The purpose was to provide data for use by SEA program staff as they revised the course so that it would be more…

The relationship among writing assessment strategies which may be applicable to competency based testing was examined in a study involving 128 high school students in six English classes in grades 11 and 12. Each student wrote two essays of at least 200 words on topics designed to test expository, or explanatory writing, and completed an objective…

The possibility that certain features of items on a reading comprehension test may lead to biased estimates of the reading achievement of particular subgroups of students was investigated. Item response data on the reading comprehension section of a frequently used achievement test were obtained from the Anchor Test Study data files. Eight…

The learning module described is designed to provide teachers with guidelines for selecting reading materials for Chicano and other Spanish-surnamed children. The rationale, goals, and objectives of the module are outlined. The table of contents of the text used in the module is reproduced. Activities and resources involved in the use of the…

This publication, designed for educators, researchers, and university students, includes articles of theory, opinions, research and practical application pertaining to all levels of educational practice. The first two articles define the place of science in the curriculum, first as a basic study and then as a holistic study. The next three…

This study examines the manner in which a group of kindergarten children viewed their kindergarten experience, how those views changed over time, and the extent to which those views were affected by background variables and preschool experiences. Eighty-three randomly selected urban kindergarten children were interviewed three times over a 7-month…