Research into the decisionmaking process of families faced with investigating alternatives to institutionalizing frail aged members could yield valuable information for service planners and providers. To analyze the extent to which its original service plan remained responsive to the changing needs of the frail elderly service population,…

Noting that a distinction can be made between the different types of problems faced by managers in today's organizations, and that managers increasingly face problems of a more complex nature, this paper suggests that an interactive management approach is best for solving complicated problems. Following an introduction that distinguishes between…

Most economists agree that the difficulties of targeting minimum wage increases to low-income families make such increases ineffective tools for reducing poverty. This paper provides estimates of the impact of minimum wage increases on the poverty gap and the number of poor families, and shows which factors are barriers to decreasing poverty…

In circumstances where judges are required to make ratings of performance, it is usually required to have two or more raters who are trained to agree on independent ratings of the same performance. It is suggested that such a requirement may produce the paradox of attenuation associated with item analysis, in which too high a correlation between…

A model of the effects of physical abuse on child peer social status was tested in an ongoing empirical study of 8- to 12-year-old physically abused urban school children and matched control children selected from among their classmates. The model posited that family patterns of violent behavior predict general behavioral disturbance in the…

A workshop on participatory research was held at the University of Calgary on May 3, 1988, as the first step in a two-step process, of which the second step will be a national conference to be held in July, 1989. The overall purpose of the workshop was to draw researchers (80 participants) together to share in the planning of the major conference…

Some central issues in discussions of creative processes in science are: (1) the mechanism(s) by which hypothesis formation takes place; (2) the sources of new knowledge during hypothesis formation; and (3) the "Eureka" versus steady accumulation (accretion) issue concerning the pace of change during hypothesis formation. This paper…

A broad range of well-structured problems--embracing forms of diagnosis, catalog selection, and skeletal planning--are solved in expert computer systems by the method of heuristic classification. These programs have a characteristic inference structure that systematically relates data to a pre-enumerated set of solutions by abstraction, heuristic…

San Juan School District, a rural school district in the southeast corner of Utah, implemented the Rural Futures Development (RFD) Strategy program to develop greater public involvement in the education process. Geographically one of the largest school districts (approximately 8,000 square miles) in the U.S., San Juan serves Anglos who mainly live…

Research evidence relating to the utility of the RMC evaluation models of compensatory education employing non-normed tests is examined. The history and evolution of five early models into the current norm-referenced model utilizing a non-normed test (Model A2), non-normed versions of a comparison model (Model B2), and the regression model (Model…

A new core curriculum at Newmann College (Pennsylvania) aims to provide liberal learning through cross-disciplinary instruction without destroying the identity of specific content areas. The Collaborative Probing Model (CPM) provides a basis for the kind of creative self-control that will lead to flexible work within and between disciplines. This…

This workshop focuses on the utility of decision making counseling: what it is, how it is operationalized into counseling behaviors, and what applications it has to counseling. Four sequential stages are proposed for explaining the use of the technique, including: (1) conceptualization; (2) enlargement of the response repertoire; (3)…

Metaphors influence, in many ways, methods and ways of thinking, including the planning and implementation of inservice teacher education programs. Inservice programs are often not considered successful; writers, developers, producers, and potential adopters of the programs should become aware of their metaphoric stance. Three metaphors commonly…

A family's metaphor, the frame of reference or perspective that is created and reflected through a family's use of figurative language, is a key to understanding the underlying values and realities of families. Constructivist theories of language view metaphor as essential to the creation of meaning. From this perspective, using metaphor as a…

Eight established methodologies were evaluated and compared in this preliminary study, which was conducted to resolve methodological questions and problems and develop an adequate approach for the collection of valid, generalizable data for an extensive study of family use of television. The study focused on four variables: which family members…