This annual report discusses several topics related to the work of the Research and Clinical Center for Child Development. Seven topics are covered in the report. The articles are: (1) "Fathers' Participation in the Lives of Their 4-Month-Old Infants: The United States and Japan" (Marguerite Stevenson Barratt, Koichi Negayama and…

This paper presents the results of eight analyses based upon data from the National Study of Student Learning (NSSL), a 3-year longitudinal research project begun in 1992 to examine the influence of academic and nonacademic experiences on student learning, student attitudes about learning, student cognitive development, and student persistence.…

The Science Teachers as Research Scientists (STARS) program is a scientific work experience program conducted at the University of Missouri-St. Louis that provides secondary science teachers internships with faculty researchers. This report evaluates the STARS program with respect to the teachers' (n=17) first summer experiences only. Both…

California's community colleges face tremendous challenges, from diminishing fiscal resources to increasing student diversity. To meet these challenges, community colleges may have to transform how they think about themselves. Organizational restructuring in two-year colleges requires the adoption of a new paradigm about the nature of community…

Despite a high attrition rate among urban teachers, some have remained and have proven to be effective with the urban population of learners. This paper determines the perceptions of urban teachers and university faculty of the role of an effective urban teacher and compares these perceptions to the natural behavioral styles of candidates for an…

Fifteen case studies of decision making in colleges and universities are discussed. A "people-oriented" approach is emphasized; both humanistic and managerial principles are considered. The case studies concern: disturbances and dissent, sexual harassment, academic freedom, departmental mismanagement, community service, outside employment,…

Educational reformers have been concerned about an apparent lack of depth in most social studies curricula with the traditional pressure to "cover" vast amounts of content leading to limited student retention of knowledge. Observational studies have analyzed numerous high school social studies classrooms in which teacher-led…

This manual describes 18 music-based activities and suggested variations designed for classroom teachers (with little or no musical training) to teach profoundly disabled students more consistent and advanced levels of responding to their environment. Brief suggestions are presented for teacher behaviors, structure of turn-taking, and classroom…

A study examined the way in which vocational and technical faculty and students perceive the effectiveness of French and Raven's five power bases. (To explain the way in which organizational control operates, French and Raven postulated the following five power bases: reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert power.) During the study,…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with the following topics: (1) the communication training needs of managers in large businesses; (2) sociolinguistic signals of role in university office-hour interactions; (3) the determinants of participation in…

This checklist is designed to help elementary school principals assess and improve science programs in their schools. The checklist is divided into four major sections, each dealing with an area that has an impact on these programs: (1) administrative aspects, considering the science curriculum plan, provisions for science in the budget,…

The Tennessee Career Ladder Evaluation system, which uses a multiple data source approach to assessment, was developed to identify excellent teachers. It is used to determine whether or not the teacher should receive increasing career benefits. Evaluation data are generated by three evaluators, the teacher candidate, the school principal, three…

Records kept by teachers and data collected by trained observers were examined as alternatives for measuring allocated and engaged instructional time in elementary school classes. The teacher ratings of student engagement did not correlate with observer ratings of engagement, but a high correlation between teacher ratings of engagement and student…

The reduction of data collected as part of the Carroll County, Georgia, Competency Based Teacher Certification Project is discussed. Data were collected on more than 1800 students in 59 classrooms (grades 1 - 12) during the 1974-75 school year. Data collected on teachers and students were reduced to classroom-level indices so that process-product…

The purpose of this project was to accomplish two goals: (1) to provide the school district of Lancaster (Pennsylvania) with an inservice program for teachers in the bilingual education program; and (2) to develop a computer-assisted bilingual education teacher training program. Seven two-day workshops were held. In addition to providing inservice…