Standard practice in educational program evaluation expends considerable resources in planning and executing elaborate research designs, but lacks description of how the programs do differ in the experimental'' and control'' situations. A serious consequence is that elaborately designed evaluation studies may end up appraising non-events, with…

Students in an open study hall system with a student lounge option received lower grades than students without the option. To prevent this, it is suggested that wise use of unstructured time be planned. (AP)

An experimental project in the teaching of biology is discussed. (CK)

The learning and retention performances of children and adults were compared on free and serialized reproductions of meaningful words. Although the children took longer than the adults to reach the learning criterion, and short-term retention was equivalent for both groups, the children displayed a superior serial recall at 7-day retention.…

Self-reinforcement by 74 children of age five years for asking questions in a small group with one trainer, then in a large group with another person, showed that self-reinforcing children had learned to ask questions but the behavior did not transfer to the new situation. (Author)

The desirability of combining tests of theory with evaluations of treatment modalities is argued in an investigation of the effectiveness of a juvenile diversion program. Using a true experimental design (with randomization), recidivism analyses dependent on court record data failed to demonstrate the relative superiority of any of three treatment…

Children 3 to 6 years of age learned simple Spanish vocabulary items using an adaptation of the keyword method of foreign language vocabulary learning. Children who used the keyword method remembered more vocabulary translations than children who were not instructed in keyword method usage. (Author/RD)

The problems of the use of humans as subjects of medical research and the protection of their rights are discussed. Issues include the use of informed consent, the evaluation of risks and benefits, and the review of research plans by a committee. (JD)

School counselors need to know which methods work best with their students. One means of determining this is presented. Limitations exist in the generalizability of findings. A major feature of intensive experimental designs is that large numbers of students are not needed to conduct meaningful evaluation of an intervention. (Author/BEF)

Hoyt recommends the use of norm groups, to adjust student ratings of instruction. Prior methods of generating norm groups relied upon the use of volunteer subjects. Results of the present study indicate that volunteer teachers' student ratings were superior to nonvolunteer teachers' ratings. (Author/RD)

Studies (N=168) describing the use of behavioral interventions with behavior-disordered students were analyzed in terms of their reporting on four classes of marker variables: descriptive, substantive, topical, and background. Data showed that more thorough descriptions of research populations are required in the areas of selection criteria,…

Discusses an 8-year follow-up study to a smoking prevention program for 13- to 15- year-old students, who were taught the skills to resist pressures to start smoking. Consistent evidence of preventive effects was found among those students who had been non-smokers when the program began. (Author/JS)

This paper discusses the problem of vague and inconsistent descriptions of individuals with learning disabilities in research reports, presents guidelines for the description of participants in small and large sample research studies, and makes suggestions for promoting compliance with the minimum standards. (Author/JDD)

Researchers fear that revelations of risky human subject research will frighten potential future subjects, and debate continues over the government's policy on methodology. Some feel the government has strong safeguards in place; others feel the system gives universities too much power to monitor themselves. (MSE)

This paper identifies methodological and practical problems in studies of child maltreatment, including developing classification schemes for multiple forms of maltreatment; distinguishing between chronic maltreatment and isolated incidents; choosing criteria for selecting comparison groups; determining whether comparison groups have experienced…