The study surveyed 134 institutions to determine if significant differences existed between public research and doctorate-granting universities concerning: (1) the most important external environmental areas to scan; and (2) the scanning activities that provide the most information for planning processes. A total of 105 responses (78%) was…

This study of 24 third-grade students learning Logo had 3 major research goals: (1) to compare the effects of learner control with those of program control on students' metacognition, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge application, with total subjects; (2) to extend the comparison between learner control and program control by classifying the…

Data from a national survey of principals in public schools with a 7th grade were used in this study of schools that serve disadvantaged, advantaged, and other populations. Differences in the schools' course-taking opportunities, organizational structures, extracurricular programs, remedial activities, instructional approaches, staffing needs, and…

An examination of cross-cultural toleration in South African university classrooms and speculation on the causes and effects of this toleration are presented in this paper. South African faculty attitudes are surveyed and compared against U.S. faculty attitudes. Findings expose the need for improvement regarding cross-cultural communication in the…

The factors that come into play in the decisions of engineering seniors and undergraduate students to continue or not to continue to graduate study are presented based on data from a survey, conducted in the spring of 1988, of 22,836 full-time seniors and graduate students in U.S. engineering programs (of this total, 4,880 returned usable…

A study was conducted at William Rainey Harper College (WRHC) to develop a profile of students who withdrew from courses between 1988 and 1990 and to compare this profile with the results of a 1986-88 withdrawal study. For the 2-year period studied, each degree credit student who officially withdrew from a course was asked to complete a survey…

Determining the overall pass rates on the College-Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) for a given cohort of students involves an analysis of both the first-time examinee performance and subsequent pass rates of students who failed the test and retook it at a later date. Two increases in the scores required to pass the CLAST in 1986 and 1989 have…

This paper summarizes an investigation of applications and issues in free response (FR) testing during 1989. It draws on ideas from the results of the National Educational Longitudinal Study 1988 (NELS:88) field test, a seminar series at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), working papers prepared for several FR testing applications, and…

A summary is presented of research on learning and teaching styles in English as a Second Language, and of results of learning and teaching style preference surveys conducted at a Mexican university in 1989. The students surveyed demonstrated much more cognitive flexibility or willingness to learn through different cognitive modes than was…

The expenses and sources of income for two supervised family day care (SFDC) systems in Denmark, where SFDC is the national family day care model, are compared with two supervised systems in Connecticut, where SFDC is rare, as in the United States generally. SFDC differs from family day care in general by the systematic involvement of trained…

Undergraduate students in sociology (N=59) and psychology (N=50) participated in a study at a large midwestern university to determine if the pattern of attributional assignment, expectancy, performance, and perceived success was different in these two groups of undergraduates. Prior to taking the first of three exams each student was asked how…

The role influx of underprepared students has challenged community colleges to develop effective ways to improve teaching and learning strategies in the classroom. In 1990, a study was conducted by the Mississippi State University Educational Media Center to compare the effects of traditional versus Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) on the…

A study was conducted to determine the organizational structure and tasks of the research, planning, and development (RPD) units within each of the 16 districts of the Wisconsin Vocational, Technical, and Adult Education (VTAE) System. For purposes of comparison, data were also collected from non-Wisconsin community colleges and technical…

Annual use of fuel oil for heating schools and other facilities of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools, Montgomery County Government, and Montgomery College exceeds four-million gallons. This report examines the processes by which purchases and distributions of fuel oil are made, makes recommendations based on the examination, and…

An overview of the membership of nine societies that comprise the American Institute of Physics is presented, with attention to demographic characteristics, employers, work activity, salaries, physics subfields, and differences among the societies. Comparisons are made to surveys since 1979, and highlights on 1983 salaries are included. One…