The degree objectives of prospective graduate students from the various ethnic groups were investigated in this study by using the extensive (200,000 plus) Graduate Record Examination (GRE) registrant population of 1976-1977. GRE scores, undergraduate grade point average, and being a male were the important predictors of students' expectations of…

Marsh and Parker (1984) described the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) whereby equally able students have lower academic self-concepts in high-ability schools than in low-ability schools. The present investigation, a reanalysis of the Youth in Transition data, supported the generality of the earlier findings and demonstrated new theoretical…

Sixty grade four pupils of the Philippine Normal College Laboratory were involved in a study to determine the effect of language of material, type of material, and ability level on their reading comprehension. The materials were either unilingual English (E/E), unilingual Pilipino (P/P), or consisted of a text in English followed by questions in…

The skills, understandings, and special attributes that a competent college student should acquire are described. General skills in writing, reading, speaking, and calculating are primarily the responsibility of elementary and secondary education, and these skills must be mastered by every college student. In addition to a specification of these…

The activities and accomplishments of the second year of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's Performance Funding Project at Tennessee Technological University are reported. The purpose of the Project was to explore the feasibility of allocating some portion of state funds to colleges and universities based on a performance criterion with…

This basic vocational related skills assessment module in food preparation is one of sixteen modules designed to help teachers assess and identify some of the areas in which special needs students may encounter learning difficulties. The materials in the module allow for informal assessment in three basic areas: academic skills, motor skills, and…

Mexican American educational aspirations and achievements were studied to determine why they tended to be considerably lower than those of Anglos and also to account for the sources of variation within each group, thus attempting to explain the particular contribution of school contexts of varying socioeconomic level and ethnic composition. A…

The document presents checklists by which music teachers and school administrators can evaluate concrete elements of orchestra programs in grades four through 12. The opening sections outline the immediate benefits of having a school orchestra; effects on later adult life of student participation in orchestras; goals of a school orchestra program;…

This study is an effort to assess both the internal and external conditions of learning. The sample included 99 first graders in four classrooms of one inner city school in a large midwestern city. The assessment measure was a battery of tests selected from frequently used tests of visual perception, auditory discrimination, language, memory,…

Since the U.S. Office of Education figures showed (at the time of this report) that on the average, 850,000 young people were dropping out of high school every year, 800,000 more were graduated from high school with no specific marketable skills, and 900,000 were dropping out of universities, junior colleges, and training schools, the study…

Effectively teaching low-achieving and learning disabled students is challenging. Concept-based instruction is recognized as a particularly effective technique for helping students in these populations attain high levels of achievement (Tindal, Nolet, & Blake, 1992). The maze (a reading selection where certain words have been deleted and…

Understanding and preventing high school failure is a national priority. Structural strain and general deviance theories attempt to explain late high school failure. The authors tested the hypotheses that general (vs. specific) deviance and academic competence mediate the relationships between structural strain factors (gender, ethnicity, and…

Noting that teachers in mixed-ability classrooms face multiple challenges, this booklet provides teachers guidance in creating learning environments that address the diversity in learning styles typical of mixed-ability classrooms. The booklet discusses what differentiated instruction is, why it is appropriate for all learners, how to plan for and…

Over the past 50 years, brain researchers have stated that human beings probably use less than 1 percent of the brain's potential, and research findings about human intelligence have transformed almost all previous definitions of intelligence. This booklet addresses the following key findings in intelligence research: intelligence is not fixed or…

To investigate the effect of heterogeneous and homogeneous instructional groupings used in a middle school eighth grade on selected student behaviors, 120 students were assigned to a heterogeneous group and 120 students to a homogeneous group based on several factors. The heterogeneous group was comprised of all students enrolled in the school…