A test was developed to predict job satisfaction on the basis of psychological needs satisfaction. A short questionnaire consisting of six multiple choice questions was designed to measure (1) expressed degree of need satisfaction among 14 pre-selected psychological needs (job security, outdoor work, good pay, competition, esteem, leadership,…

Wait time, or the pauses between questions and responses, has been demonstrated to be an important factor influencing classroom learning. This paper reviews the key variables that have emerged in wait time research over the past 20 years. Progress in defining and measuring wait time has resulted in improved methodology for wait time research.…

Academic persistence at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) was studied from fall 1979 through spring 1983. Attention was directed to the school's graduation rate and correlations between sex, race, major, grade point average (GPA) and persistence. Of the 1,043 students who were beginning freshmen in 1979, the study sample consisted of…

The relative development of Piagetian concrete logical operational abilities was investigated in Mexican American and Anglo American children. Performance was assessed on eight classification tasks and three forms of transitivity, measuring seriation skills. One phase of the study compared the performances of 30 Anglo and 30 Mexican American…

A study involving 513 developmental math students at eight Illinois community colleges was conducted to determine the correlation between student success or failure in developmental math courses and nine independent variables: (1) instructional method, i.e. "traditional," in which the instructor sets the pace for learning, and "nontraditional," in…

A study examined the effects of maternal employment status and a series of intrafamilial variables on the career orientation of adolescent females and on their attitudes toward working mothers. The Career Orientation Scale (COS), a researcher-developer scale designed to measure the extent to which work is viewed as central to the female…

Results of the secondary analysis of data obtained in a study of Head Start graduates in the public schools are presented and discussed in this final report. Unforeseen circumstances prohibited the full implementation of the original longitudinal research design, and, consequently, only one test battery was administered to first-grade students.…

A study of third-year medical school discussion groups was undertaken to determine how much the cognitive level of instructors' questions in small group sessions influenced student responses and whether these responses had any measureable relationship to critical thinking skills, or National Board of Medical Examiner (NBME) scores. The research…

The progress of students under 21 years old at the United Kingdom's Open University (OU) was compared with a sample of mature students, using sociological and psychometric research methods. The research goal was to consider whether the OU's teaching system originally designed for adults is suited to the needs and circumstances of students in the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The nine titles deal with the following topics: (1) small group interaction within effective and ineffective decision making groups; (2) vertical communication as perceived by administrators and teachers; (3) communication roles as…

Classroom teachers need to make sound judgments and decisions concerning curricular and instructional issues. The teachers who wish to become more effective in the classroom should learn to develop their own research designs since educational research reported in journals is often inconclusive, conflicting, or not relevant to the classroom…

Research which has investigated factors affecting pupils' attitudes toward school subjects is reviewed, examining descriptive, correlational, and experimental research on students' attitudes toward several different school subjects at various grade levels. Although many weaknesses exist in the methodology and theoretical basis of much of the…

A theory, which proposed a hierarchy of determinants of student ratings of instruction, was tested. Situational variables such as class size, elective enrollment, and grade expectancy were hypothesized to be only indicators of more potent determiners. These motivational constructs were diversity of enrollment motives and subject matter interests,…

In a study of reading achievement in the Chicago schools, regression and factor analysis were used to discover which school measures were associated with the reading comprehension scores of students ages 7, 10, and 13. Achievement data from three successive years (1974-75, 1975-76, and 1976-77) were averaged from the results of the Iowa Tests of…

In order to facilitate efforts to evaluate the progress of black students currently enrolled in several selective colleges and/or to develop rationales for extending educational opportunity to racial minorities, a study was undertaken to focus on (1) selected characteristics of black female students entering several selective liberal arts…