THE EVALUATION OR DEVALUATION OF CURRICULUMS REQUIRES THE VALIDATION OR INVALIDATION OF THEORY AND IS NOT DETERMINED BY PHILOSOPHICAL DISPUTE. AS LONG AS A CURRICULUM IS CONSIDERED TO BE A CLOSED INFORMATIONAL SYSTEM, INTERNAL CRITERIA MAY HELP ITS SEQUENCE AND ESTABLISH ITS CONSISTENCY BUT CANNOT VALIDATE IT. TO EVALUATE A CLOSED INFORMATIONAL…

THE FAILURE OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH TO CONTRIBUTE LARGE CONSISTENT BODIES OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS HAS BEEN DUE TO FIVE MAJOR FACTORS--(1) FAULTY EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN, (2) FAILURE TO CONSIDER ALL OF THE MAJOR INPUT ELEMENTS OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS, (3) FAILURE TO MAKE MEANINGFUL COMPARISONS (FOR EXAMPLE THE CONTROL GROUP IS NOT…

The author examines recent trends in curriculum study through a discussion of three schools of thought in the field--traditionalism, conceptual-empiricism, and reconceptualism. (IRT)

EDUCATIONAL THEORIZING IS A NEEDED ENDEAVOR IN THE EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH PROCESS. WHILE THEORIZING HAS OFTEN BEEN EQUATED WITH PHILOSOPHIZING, IT IS NOT THE WHOLE OF IT, SINCE PHILOSOPHY HAS OTHER TRADITIONS WHICH MAKE THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION A LEGITIMATE PART OF EDUCATIONAL THEORIZING. FOUR KINDS OF THEORIZING HAVE BEEN SORTED OUT--(1)…

The first phase of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) activity in the revision of 61 curriculum units of the Comprehensive Career Education Model (CCEM) project focused on obtaining information that would aid in revising the units to meet the needs of publishers, school administrators, and teachers. Three separate acceptability studies…

Two films, "Oxygen Breathing Apparatus Type A-3" and "Damage Control Petty Officer," were developed using an educational systems approach and based on 15 behavioral objectives. The effectiveness of each film was tested using three samples: one which was pretested, viewed the film, and was posttested; another which was pretested and posttested but…

Several practical suggestions or guidelines for deriving objectives in traditionally difficult curriculum areas (written and oral communication, fine arts, social sciences, and humanities) are presented in this paper. The author believes that educators do not know how well they can define important, teachable objectives in these areas until they…

The discovery of theory is a major task confronting educators and researchers in many disciplines. More specifically, Eisner (1971) contends that with the exception of four studies, no attempt to systematically study curriculum has been made. Further conceptualizations and empirical investigations in this area are needed. It's apparent that while…

Ten reports reviewed in this issue pertain to these topics related to vocational education curriculum: (1) "Curriculum Development Projects" relates information on four curriculum development efforts and a journal on this subject, (2) "Curriculum Workshops" reports a national workshop on post secondary wage-earning home economics curriculums, (3)…

This programmed text of basic geography was created by Project Africa, a social studies curriculum research and development project established at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). This material is intended to serve as an independent study aid for students who wish to understand basic geographic principles of location, seasons…

Modular building design is the architectural premise for a California school. Audiovisual instruction, and educational programs and curriculum, are discussed, as is future planning. The school is one of twenty schools cooperating with UCLA and various foundations to stimulate and study educational innovations. (FPO)

There seem to be few answers to questions asked concerning how a curriculum might be structured, or how a curriculum is currently formulated, and what the implications might be of structuring a curriculum in various ways. Most of the literature in this area consists of either arguments for "psychological" versus "logical" structure or inconsistent…

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a curriculum using Scandura's algorithmic approach to characterize the knowledge inherent in a text. Two one-semester curricula were compared: a discrete characterization (D) in which each class of behaviors was accounted for separately, one rule for each behavior; and a higher order…

This essay aims at conceptual clarification within the field of curriculum. The concepts of curriculum theory, design, and practice are approached from the point of view of axiology. The argument presented is based on a distinction between value principles and value judgments and the type of justification involved in reasoning about such…

This report, which is an abstract and summary of a 450 page study, is intended to serve as a device to stimulate qualitative introspection with an end toward the improvement of the Nasson College students' undergraduate academic experiences. The contents of the report represent the results of empirical curricular research undertaken at the college…