There are differences between, and among, people in ethnic communities. This study seeks to provide a more nuanced snapshot of vocational education and training (VET) participation and completion rates among Arabic, Bosnian, Cantonese, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese communities. It investigates the effectiveness of English as a second language…

The goals of this "Action Research" study were to understand how to create an anti-bias curriculum project focusing on Native North Americans and how to teach children to recognize stereotypes in children's literature, while using "The Project Approach" (Helm & Katz, 2001) to do the formative curriculum development. The study weaves together three…

The paper represents a study of students' experience of interactivity in distance education programmes at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). Through surveys and focus groups with students, facilitators, and administrative support staff, we found out that interactivity is a key determinant of student success rate. Majority of the…

Project Renaissance is a program offered to first-year students at the University of Albany (State University of New York). The purpose is to provide a multi-disciplinary integrated approach to curriculum, supporting a more cohesive environment that recognizes the individual student's cognitive and social needs. Participants are housed in the same…

This paper examines issues identified in a qualitative study in nine diverse local service systems as program administrators of early intervention programs for young children with disabilities sought to obtain United Way funding and other sources of philanthropy. Data are based on issues raised in nine focus groups conducted with community…

This qualitative study explored the evaluative criteria used by administrators at a southern, metropolitan university to define institutional effectiveness and to determine the congruency between those criteria and the institution's metropolitan mission. Four focus groups were conducted with 22 administrators (vice chancellors, associate and…

This paper describes how focus groups were used to assess the effectiveness of the University of Kentucky's Agricultural Information Center (AIC) in providing patron services. The AIC serves 1,100 undergraduate students, 370 graduate and postdoctoral students, and 1,700 faculty and staff in the College of Agriculture. In August 2000, the AIC…

The way in which public examinations influence teaching and learning is commonly described as "washback" or backwash. This study examined the nature and scope of the impact of a public examination on English teaching in Taiwan to add to the existing literature on testing washback in an English-as-a-second-language context. The relational…

In this study of 53 graduate students enrolled in an introductory course in educational research, the instructor employed strategies noted in the literature as effective in reducing anxiety in statistics classes: (1) addressing the anxiety; (2) using humor; (3) applying statistics to real world situations; (4) reducing fear of evaluation; and (5)…

Data are not available to inform education policy discussion regarding how resources are allocated both within and among schools. This study was conducted to develop and pilot test a questionnaire that would collect school-level expenditure data. This report describes the three site visits and focus group conducted for this project, findings from…

This paper reports on a focus group discussion held in June, 1998, in Killington, Vermont, about a 3-year project in Vermont to encourage the self-determination of people with developmental disabilities. The project has involved training of four project teams, each composed of a person with a developmental disability, a family member, and a person…

Discusses use of focus groups as qualitative research methodology and as reflection tool in service learning. Three focus groups at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) assessed cognitive outcomes of service-learning and encouraged students' reflection on their experience. Focus group data were triangulated with survey data to assess validity of…

Explores what focus groups are, how they have been utilized by researchers, and some of the practical and theoretical implications for incorporating focus groups in the design of educational research. Includes verbatim transcripts from interviews and specific examples of various focus groups. (MJP)

Provides an account of the perceptions and experiences of preservice teachers on the roles of their tutors in online discussions, based on a study at the National Institute of Education (Singapore). Reports results of a questionnaire survey, focus group interviews, and analyses of the discussion records. (Author/LRW)

By placing integrated access to online information on the desktop, companies gain a competitive edge, empower their employees, and deliver higher-quality service at less cost. Information audits, focus groups, and employee interviews can determine the information needs of organizations and enhance their information infrastructure. In this light,…