This case provides an account of the use of the repertory grid interview technique as one aspect of my PhD study. The doctoral thesis documented the development of a holistic approach to redesign an introductory programming course to enhance learning and teaching of object-oriented programming to novices. Starting with the premise that it is not…

Professional school counselors' leadership capacity may well play a pivotal role in educational reform in the twenty-first century. Crucial to the success of this vision, supported by the American School Counseling Association, is the perspective of system-level supervisors of school counselors. This exploratory qualitative study employed in-depth…

Pressing questions about the merits of market accountability in K-12 education have spawned a large scholarly literature. Unfortunately, much of that literature is of limited relevance, and much of it is misleading. The studies most widely cited in the United States used intense scrutiny of a few small-scale, restriction-laden U.S. school choice…

Author expresses concern about a number of problems inherent in the DD and A processes as they now exist in education and feels that educational practitioners making changes and innovations need to be protected from research and evaluation reports of poor quality. (Author/MB)

Critically reviews literature on school effectiveness challenging the assumption that school differences have little effect on student achievement, presents a speculative portrait of an effective school, and proposes directions for future research. (MP)

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. The chapter advocates the analysis of event-histories (data giving the number, timing, and sequence of changes in a categorical dependent variable) with maximum likelihood estimators (MLE) applied to log-linear rate models. Results from a Monte Carlo investigation of the impact…

Several problems exist with the rural knowledge base as it is traditionally conceived: (1) there is no useful rural definition with the diverse rural reality; (2) rural is undervalued as reflected in teacher education and training and in the stereotyping of regions in the country; (3) issues of sparsity, scarcity and size are disregarded, and (4)…

The need for competent formal evaluation programs, particularly for new federally assisted programs, is expressed. Problems in defining educational evaluation and its requirements, in designing such evaluations, and 3 possible sources of faulty conceptual bases for evaluations, are presented. An attempt is made to define evaluation in general, to…

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. Addressing the problems of studying change and the change process, the report argues that sociologists should study coupled changes in qualitative and quantitative outcomes (e.g., marital status and earnings). The author presents a model for sociological studies of change in…

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. The chapter examines the merits of four estimators in the causal analysis of event-histories (data giving the number, timing, and sequence of changes in a categorical dependent variable). The four procedures are ordinary least squares, Kaplan-Meier least squares, maximum…

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. This chapter reports the results of Monte Carlo simulations designed to analyze problems of using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE: see SO 011 767) in research models which combine longitudinal and dynamic behavior data in studies of change. Four complications--censoring of…

A SUGGESTED MODEL FOR ADEQUATE DISSEMINATION OF RESEARCH FINDINGS CONSIDERS FOUR PRIMARY BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION--(1) DIVISION OF PERSONNEL LABOR INTO TASK ROLES, (2) INSTITUTIONAL DISTINCTIONS, (3) DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL REFERENCE GROUPS, AND (4) GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS. SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS INCLUDE LINKING SYSTEMS AND ROLES,…

The document, part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759, examines sociological research methods for the study of change. The advantages and procedures for dynamic analysis of event-history data (data giving the number, timing, and sequence of changes in a categorical dependent variable) are considered. The authors argue for grounding…

The document, part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759, considers the problem of censoring in the analysis of event-histories (data on dated events, including dates of change from one qualitative state to another). Censoring refers to the lack of information on events that occur before or after the period for which data are available.…

Research on school reform efforts and reform evaluation and the recognition that individual students are in constant transition and are members of multiple groups whose dynamics differ over the duration of schooling were examined. A conceptual framework for developing design and analysis strategies for investigating educational reform efforts is…