This paper describes the Student Perceptions Survey (SPS), a simplified, pragmatic, and nontechnical approach to inventorying student needs and student perceptions of available help on the campus. A literature review on assessing institutional environments and the developmental tasks of college age students is provided. The SPS incorporates the…

The scientific and technical publications summarized in this report describe research on intelligent instructional systems sponsored by the Personnel and Training Research Programs, Psychological Sciences Division, of the Office of Naval Research. Abstracts of the following papers are presented: (1) "Understanding Reflective Problem…

This brief highlights some of the trends in the literature related to intercultural understanding and provides a list of resources that can be used by educators in promoting it. The consensus of the literature on promoting cultural understanding is that the term "culture" generally refers to a system of beliefs, customs, and behaviors…

The terms "learning communities" and "communities of practice" are being used with increasing frequency to describe the phenomenon of groups (communities) of individuals learning together. Theories focusing on the social nature of cognition and meaning, as opposed to those focusing on individual learning, are stressed. In works…