Educational practitioners tend to resist or avoid doing educational research primarily for two reasons: their prior experience with statistics, computers, and research design has produced insecurity and anxiety; and, they have acquired a basic misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of research. Good research should be both technically sound…

The study of the role parents play in the reading development of their children requires a methodology that is unobtrusive, humane, objective, and natural. Ethnography, with its corresponding technique of participant observation, offers these characteristics. The distinctive features of an ethnographic research design include: formulation of the…

Action research in the Cobb County (Georgia) school district is described. This research is being conducted in the district under three main approaches: (1) co-researcher projects addressing central level issues; (2) district-wide projects; and (3) school-focused action research, including minigrants to teachers. The first three…

Ethnographic research in reading examines process more than outcomes of instruction, considers environmental factors, and studies the behavior of individual learners. There are few descriptive studies in reading to guide researchers in ethnographic research. Some aspects of planning such a study include gaining permission from school…

This paper discusses the utility of an ethnographic method that incorporates various participant observation techniques in providing information about family television viewing. It presents arguments for a naturalistic case study approach focusing on family-media interaction and suggests three methods of data collection: interviews and followups;…

The 29 editorial board members of three communications journals were asked to indicate what criteria they used to evaluate and select the manuscripts submitted to their journals for publication. The 16 people who responded indicated six things that they require in manuscripts: a strong introduction that clearly and concisely states the conceptual…

An assessment of newspapers from ghost towns in the United States is proposed in this paper as a means of improving the definitions of frontier journalism beyond national time periods, expansion over geographical space, and primitive policy and practices. It is suggested that an evaluation be made by measurement and appraisal of those newspapers'…

A model for program evaluation with pertinent data from a variety of methods applied in six settings is described. The settings include two university clinical psychology programs at Alabama and Kansas; the Memphis Internship Consortium; the University of Arkansas Student Development Center component of the Counseling Unit; and two county social…

Originally prepared for and delivered at a 1978 workshop about the resources of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the four essays in this pamphlet provide a series of guides to the archives, maps, printed materials, and other sources of genealogical data located in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. All four essays were written by…

Expressing the concern of the Parliamentary Libraries Section of International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) about the need of legislators for access to up-to-date, reliable, adequate libraries and dissemination facilities, this paper offers a general review of requirements necessary for the initiation and development of legislative…

Guidelines are presented to provide advice on the development of national and regional research collections of children's literature and reading materials for use by library professionals. Following a brief introduction on the advantages of such collections, their organization, financing, staffing, and goals, this paper offers suggestions for…

Discusses electronic information resources related to former Soviet and east European studies that are available through academic communications networks such as BITNET. Descriptions and access information are provided for online library catalogs, databases, discussion groups, listservers, and electronic journals. Electronic mail links with former…

Designed to assist educators in making a more knowledgeable selection of reading methods and techniques, this paper integrates the findings of eye processing research with classroom reading practices. Following a review of eye movement and visual processing research, the paper presents a discussion of research on the process by which a reader…

The purpose of this paper is to dispel some of the fantasies surrounding school readiness and to look at some of the realities presented to parents and schools by children. Section I provides developmental guidelines for assessing the school readiness of 3-year-old preschoolers, examines behavior patterns normally exhibited by children on entering…