A study of two small-to-middle-sized midwestern school districts, each observed for over a year, shows that the negotiated order concept can provide a useful framework for viewing schools' organizational functions. According to the negotiated order concept, organizational relationships require constant negotiations concerning values, goals, rules,…

This essay supports William Kessen's recent call for a reorientation of child development research toward studies of the child in context and focuses on problems in monocultural studies of the child to argue that this reorientation will require significant changes in child development research methodology. Research on cultural differences in moral…

This speech concerns the dimensions of context-oriented evaluation and begins with a discussion of the differences between measurement, research, statistical methodology, and evaluation. Decision-oriented evaluation is described as a process in which the evaluator has, as a major concern, the responsibility to determine likely decisions prior to…

A persistent problem in aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) research has been the need for a better conceptualization of instructional treatments. The concerns are important in the analysis of instructional treatments: the importance of considering the psychological processes called upon by the instructional treatment, and the ecological validity…

The study identifies specific financial indicators for higher education, indicates the recommended source of data, and suggests a survey for the Higher Education Panel that could be used to supplement the data. The use of the indicators is explored and it is explained that the indicators allow the grouping of institutions for comparative analysis.…

The authors suggest that efforts to comply with the protection in evaluation procedures provisions of P.L. 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Children Act) have been characterized by attempts to identify a single fair test for use with specific groups of minority children, and that such efforts will not result in improved efforts to…

This paper describing a newly created instructional approach developed at Oregon State University focuses on discussions of the process, a guided design decision-making strategy used by a team of instructors to design and develop the product, i.e., the feedback lecture approach, which is examined both in its developmental stage and in its measured…

Problems related to family violence are complex and multi-faceted and involve large numbers of people in this country. A number of types of violence in families are identified initially; however, the manual focuses on the concerns of battered women, or interspousal abuse. Information focuses on: (1) the nature, causes and effects of family…

This paper presents the rudiments of a constructivist conceptual framework which school psychologists can use to help parents develop positive parenting concepts. Problems arise if school psychologists rely solely on a mechanistic paradigm when they identify causes of unwanted behaviors and suggest specific remedial strategies. Operating within a…

Although conventional approaches to teaching psychology are probably effective to some degree, it is possible that psychology should be a "hands on" science, i.e., students of psychology should learn to apply the concepts and principles of the theoretical regions of psychology and to solve open-ended problems through the application of…

The predictive value of a child abuse screening instrument on unselected populations is illustrated for varying hypothesized levels of child abuse prevalence to demonstrate outcome of a hypothetical national screening program. At any level of application, the prediction of false positives (nonabusing families labeled as abusing or potentially…

The program described in this manual is Project ROME-FOCUS--a field-oriented, competency-based instructional program for school administrators pursuing the sixth-year degree at Valdosta State College, Georgia. It is designed to help principals work more effectively with teachers in solving school problems. The manual is intended for use by both…

This report summarizes the theoretic background, rationale, and development of 14 simulated cases useful in comparing the problem-solving behaviors of clinicians as they diagnose the same case under the same conditions and in supplementing field experiences in teacher preparation programs. The first section of the report presents a theoretic…

The scientific method is described as intending to be the guarantor of objectivity, neutrality, and diligent application of its rigorous procedures and to produce a body of cumulative knowledge that is systematic and general. The central argument of this essay addresses the discovery that research findings appear to be context-dependent; methods…

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss a conceptual model for experimentally investigating the effects of advertising puffery. The various sections contain a discussion of puffery as a legal concept, a description and discussion of the proposed model, research support for the model, and implications for future research on puffery.…