Numerous studies exist that report the behaviors of elite athletes, but little research exists which describes the experiences of students within public school physical education classes. The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences articulated by ninth graders participating (n=67) in their last semester of required physical…

A whole-school intervention strategy to transform the teaching/learning culture of schools was designed and implemented at an NSF (National Science Foundation)-sponsored SSI (Statewide Systemic Initiative) program for educational reform in science and mathematics in its pilot and dissemination stages. The SSI simultaneously provides: effective…

A study examined the extent to which employees in one university extension organization oriented themselves to a vision of extension work that responded to nontraditional societal problems, nontraditional affected communities, and the expertise of nontraditional faculty. The state extension service organization (based at a large midwestern…

The Writing Program Director at Johnson County Community College (Kansas) developed quantitative measures for writing instruction evaluation which can support that institution's growing interest in and support for peer collaboration as a means to improving instructional quality. The first process (Interaction Analysis) has an observer measure…

The Multiple Option Observation System for Experimental Studies (MOOSES) is a flexible data collection and analysis package for applied behavioral research that addresses the needs of researchers interested in live coding of observational data. MOOSES allows the researcher to design a coding system for a particular research question. General types…

Although videotape is the preferred method for recording behavior, there are many natural settings in which it is impractical or too intrusive. The ability to collect data in such settings and in real time has been enhanced by the advent of light, powerful laptop computers. This poster (with paper) describes a set of eight programs (developed in…

Novice researchers often face more peril than pleasures in the researching process, which can become even more perilous as bicultural backgrounds locate them in ambiguous and fluid positions in relation to the "native" and the research community. Such ambiguity problematizes the techniques of participant observation, revealing it as a…

The Calculators in Primary Mathematics Project was a long-term investigation into the effects of the introduction of calculators on the learning and teaching of primary mathematics. The Australian project commenced with children who were in kindergarten and grade 1 in 1990, moving up through the schools to grade 4 level by 1993. Children were…

Emerging criteria are reported for judging the trustworthiness of action research studies as compared to the criteria established for judging the trustworthiness of other forms of naturalistic inquiry set forth by Y. S. Lincoln and E. Guba (1985). Differing conceptions of the nature of action research are delineated, and their accompanying…

Typically, attributions of attitude are assessed after one instance of an actor's behavior. To determine what types of attributions observers make after the presentation of a sequence of behaviors, 135 college students were asked to make attributions about an actor's behavior after having been provided with category-based (group membership) and…

A total of 21 full-day structured classroom observations were conducted in six classes of the Austin Independent School District Bilingual Preschool Project (Texas) having a high incidence of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students. Each class consisted of 15 LEP students and 3 English-proficient students. It was anticipated that…

Although the Classroom Observation Scales (COS), which measures general process variables stressed in previous classroom research, showed good stability across years and across contexts within years, they did not show the numbers and kinds of relationships with student learning gains expected on the basis of previous research. (Author/BJG)

In order to compare the evaluations of self-disclosure from three points of view--the sender, the receiver, and a neutral observer--self-rankings and group-rankings of self-disclosure were collected from 11 members of a weekend encounter group. Results indicate that content analyses yield quite different results from global analyses. (Author)

Two observational systems were employed to measure the behavior patterns of two elementary-age autistic children and their classroom peers during a free-play period. The results obtained were discussed in terms of their significance for the clinical treatment of autistic behavior, and the evaluation of such treatment. (Author)

Data were collected on rate per minute of administering token reinforcement for one male and six female teachers enrolled in a behavior modification course. Comparison of reinforcement rates for observer-present versus absent indicated significantly higher rates of token delivery in the observer-present condition. Implications of this fact are…