Attempts to define "effective," as used in the term "effective schools"; discusses the findings and outcomes of effective schools research and describes criticisms of such research; evaluates problems and strengths of research on school effectiveness. Draws from author's own study of three high achieving black schools in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.…

To determine perceptions of self-actualizing behavior as a purpose of higher education, students, professors, and administrators rated 12 self-actualizing behaviors on a 5-point scale from important to unimportant for the university to encourage. Analysis of responses showed the three groups essentially agreed that higher education should develop…

Several examples are provided of criterion checklists, which are defined as documents which include qualities of actions necessary in a desired performance or qualities of elements necessary in a desired product. How and when to use checklists in skill teaching and how to create them are discussed. (MBR)

An analysis of national programs for monitoring student achievement in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States finds that "national assessment" promotes a view of "standards" which is narrow, limiting, and definitely not conducive to the emergence of flexible and imaginative educational policies designed to cope…

This paper sets forth chronology of disciplinary names that have been used in scholarly literature over past 80 years to characterize information science and its antecedents--bibliography, documentation, scientific information, information retrieval, information science, informatics, bibliometrics. Future research needs are discussed. Related…

The level of meaning (membership, partial association, or generalization) that English-speaking (N=1635) and Hindi-speaking students (N=823) preferred when thinking about each of 16 key concept definitions associated with the theme "the nature of matter" was measured for each concept. Results and implications for science instruction are…

Presents an anecdotal look at the evolution of computer literacy from 1965 to 1985 and a projection to 1995 by tracing progress at 10-year intervals. The characteristics of a computer literate person and arguments for computer literacy during each time period are discussed. (MBR)

The effects of text-provided aids on readers' understanding of scientific passages are discussed. Two techniques are pretraining on definitions and signaling. In the experiments, subjects read a scientific passage with either definitions pretraining, signaling, both, or neither. Results indicated these techniques helped readers build mental models…

Discusses current national mood regarding importance of science education, what can be done to remedy the gross inadequacy of math and science education that currently exists for the average U.S. student, make-up of target audience for this new strategy, and pedagogical strategy designed to achieve technology literacy. (MBR)

Focuses on (1) the acquisition and use of word representations and (2) the acquisition of the alphabetic code. Urges that instruction provide conditions to promote the learning of three types of representation--word forms, letter patterns, and mapping. (RDN)

Characteristics of different kinds of disabled children, including mentally retarded, neurologically impaired, emotionally disturbed, orthopedically impaired, visually impaired, perceptually disabled, auditorially disabled, and multiply disabled, are described. Approaches for teaching art activities to the various groups are presented and teacher…

Reviews various sociological concepts of "rural" and the definitional problems related to occupational, sociocultural, ecological, and multidimensional conceptions of rurality. Describes and recommends multidimensional typologies developed by the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Services and the Maine State Planning…

The university aims to define what it means to be a well-educated person and a responsible citizen both of the university and of the broader social and political world. A definition of the idea of a university and an analysis of the role and function of "general education" in a modern university are provided.(MLW)

Compares various methods of defining derived quantities, arguing for a definitional formula using base or fundamental units in a word equation, or symbol-equations with the symbols explained. Suggests that fundamental units be defined operationally or left regarded as intuitive as in the case of length and time. (JM)

Investigated learning of the energy concept during physics instruction in grades seven to 10, focusing on meanings of words (names of concepts) and tasks involving motion. Results indicate severe limitations of the impact of physics instruction on learning the concept. (JN)