A view of teacher empowerment based on professional knowledge is presented in this paper. A new definition of "professional knowledge" for teachers is also proposed, based on teachers' knowledge of professional community, educational policy, and subject area. After a year of field study and a literature review of structural, formal, and…

This statement before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education reviews what students and their parents know about college costs and student aid, and examines the types of tuition-guarantee programs and their effectiveness. It reports that students have limited knowledge of the cost of attending different…

The Critical Decision Method (CDM) is a structured interview method for eliciting expert knowledge. The method was used in a study of computer programmers who were experts at debugging complex computer systems. Fifteen programmers who were identified by their supervisors as experts were asked to describe an experience in which their expertise made…

This study identified differences and similarities among the perceptions of adult and adolescent community members regarding drug use patterns and practices. A written questionnaire was administered to 5,128 adolescents from grades 7 through 12 in the rural inland northwest, and a similar questionnaire was administered to over 900 adults in the…

The practicum developed a four-part program to promote a community support network to meet the needs of head injured children and their families. A primary goal was to increase the membership in the head injury support group and provide a network of community support for this population. A second aim was to increase the awareness of head injuries…

A study determined whether changes in knowledge, selected attitudes, and self-examination behavior occurred among college-aged men after exposure to alternative cancer education programs. College-aged men (n=128) from two large health education classes at a mid-western university were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. The first group…

The purposes of the lecture method in higher education are considered. The advocates of lecturing claim that this approach can be used to present knowledge to students, to foster intellectual skills, and to change students' attitudes and values. Research evidence suggests that: the lecture can be effective for expounding facts and principles,…

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 challenged school counselors to provide sex fair guidance and counseling practices. To determine Connecticut counselors' compliance with the law, and to examine factors affecting their compliance, 147 secondary school counselors completed surveys. The questionnaire was designed to examine counseling…

Two experiments were conducted to assess the nature and extent of children's knowledge about the density of objects. In the first experiment, 18 children 3- to 5-years-old were shown 8 objects which were placed in water 1 at a time. The children were later asked to judge whether the objects would sink or float when placed in water. Findings…

A study determined whether chemical operations specialists at skill level 1 differ in terms of aptitude, job knowledge, job confidence, and perceptions of task difficulty, task importance, task frequency, and task training, depending on whether the specialists are active U.S. Army soldiers or are in the Army Reserve. The subjects for whom complete…

Research on belief perseverance has demonstrated that a belief persists to the extent that there are more explanations available to the believer to support the original belief than to support alternative beliefs. This study extends earlier work (Slusher, 1988) that demonstrated the role of explanation availability in mediating belief change.…

A study was conducted to assess the possible effects of headings on the search and recall performance of high- and low-knowledge subjects, 153 college students in an introductory psychology course. Seventy-five of the subjects read a 1,760-word adaptation of the passage on organizational processes in memory--the low-knowledge passage. The other 78…

Teacher education reform policies and proposals--particularly those of the Holmes Group--call for fewer education courses and more liberal arts. This paper examines the assumptions that underlie such proposals. A review of recent research on teaching and learning in undergraduate physics and mathematics raises questions about the effectiveness of…

An alternative is suggested to conventional and propositional ways of thinking about curriculum matters. Curriculum theory is conventionally presented as statements of propositional knowledge even though the significance of tacit, non-propositional knowledge has been recognized in philosophy. It is suggested that attention be paid to how teachers…

This study conducted at the University of Montevallo (Alabama) was designed to assess the knowledge and anxiety levels related to microcomputers of inservice teachers prior to exposure to a model of instruction and after completion of instruction. A description is given of a model for the presentation of microcomputer experiences which includes…