This report details the process undertaken at Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC) to develop a content-valid questionnaire to identify the instructional training needs of full-time college faculty. Chapter 1 discusses the background to the project, reviews the goals of the Employee Development Program at PVCC and stresses the importance of…

The current challenge in distance education is to determine the ways in which research can assist practice in fostering communication. Research in distance education may be broken down into three approaches: (1) practical and descriptive studies that give little attention to conceptual underpinnings; (2) application of conceptual models from…

After briefly tracing the development of modern bibliographic instruction since the 1870s, this report concentrates on the characteristics of bibliographic instruction in the past decade. It points out that the 1980s, dubbed the "second generation" of library instruction, saw an increased emphasis on preparing students to deal critically…

The aims of the International Education Association's Preprimary Project are to examine developmentally relevant characteristics of the socialization environments of 4-year-olds in participating countries, and to ascertain the relationships between those characteristics and selected developmental outcomes. Phase I of the project consists primarily…

Needs assessment is an activity undertaken for planning purposes. It is important to define the limits of the study and design it on a scale appropriate to the entire planning process. This paper suggests that a needs assessment be structured into two phases. In the pre-assessment phase, a conceptual framework and well-defined exploratory…

A 2-year pilot program in Toronto, Ontario, used in-school learning centers (LC) to enable 60 variously handicapped students in three junior schools to withdraw from self-contained classes and mainstream into regular classes. To develop the program, a Special Education Work Group performed such activities as writing issue papers, visiting 12…

An internal evaluation was carried out on the governing procedures of the Center for Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln during the spring semester, 1985-86. The evaluation focused on the major governance committee within the Center (the Center Executive Committee) and its relationship with the two other forms of…

With increasing reliance being placed on the results of their surveys, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recognized a need for these survey results to be valid and reliable. As part of the work of the Statistical Analysis Group in Education (SAGE), an effort was undertaken to investigate validity and reliability in survey…

A statistical method has been developed for nested incomplete samples in a longitudinal study in which part of the sample has dropped out in such a way that the data have a nested pattern. A procedure which performed well in a Monte Carlo experiment was extended to a two-factor incomplete design with repeated measures on one factor. Methods…

The Research Secretariat on Social Services and Community Development was one of the five Hispanic research task forces funded by the Ford Foundation to determine Hispanic research priorities. Its three major purposes were the following: (1) to develop an Hispanic research and policy agenda which recommends research activities and prioritizes…

This paper uses a case history approach to present the evolution of two longitudinal studies, Youth in Transition, which involved 8 years of data collection (1966-1974) and Monitoring the Future, for which data collection began in 1975 and continues in the present. The Youth in Transition project is described as a study of the causes and…

Sampling distributions for ten tests for comparing population variances in a two group design were generated for several combinations of equal and unequal sample sizes, population means, and group variances when distributional forms differed. The ten procedures included: (1) O'Brien's (OB); (2) O'Brien's with adjusted degrees of freedom; (3)…

The Federal Republic of Germany's educational system became a matter of major national concern in the early 1960's, drawing new attention to the need for educational research. Sociological and economic questions joined the pedagogical and psychological concerns previously central to research; the character of the educational system was added to…

In preparation for a major research study on change in schools, a 3-month pilot study of principals in 10 schools was conducted in central Texas. The main purpose of the study was to investigate different ways to document the actions taken by the principals to facilitate implementation of innovations in their schools. In this paper, the procedures…

West German research on children's interests is described, with emphasis on a 3-year longitudinal study of 12 children, aged 3 to 7. Two main lines of interest research are identified: (1) research activities rooted in the tradition of differential psychology emphasizing vocational interests, traits, and attitudes; and (2) research based on a new…