Evaluations of social programs based upon quasi-experimental designs are typically plagued by problems of nonequivalence between the experimental and comparison group prior to the experiment. In such settings it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the effects of the program from the confounding effects associated with the…

The rationale of shared responsibility by the hierarchy and the laity for directing Catholic school and non-school religious educational programs is clearly present in the Vatican Council II documents, which state that members of the laity should be involved in all decisions affecting their lives and that appropriate structures should be…

The purpose of this review is twofold--to summarize the major models of educational change and to present a series of generalizations based on recent empirical studies about educational change. In the first section, previous reviews of the change literature are presented in order to establish a broad perspective concerning research in this area.…

These seven papers address problems of teaching about state government and politics at the secondary level and provide a framework and suggestions for improving the curriculum. The first paper analyzes the current civics curriculum and notes that textbooks underemphasize state government and overemphasize the structure and the formal procedures of…

A model program for freshman women in engineering was field tested and evaluated at the Purdue University Department of Freshman Engineering. The course, open to men and women, was designed to provide more equitable educational opportunities through hands-on laboratories, career education, and role-model lectures on energy, environment,…

A study of two groups of students at Sacramento City College (California) was undertaken in Fall, 1978, to determine whether the holistic approach to the teaching of basic writing (involving the techniques of free writing, writing from stimulus words, and controlled composition) could result in more significant gains in fluency and reduction of…

Australian studies show that television assists in the socialization of immigrants, changing and shaping their self-images and perceptions of reality and fostering their interpersonal communication skills. Studies conducted to evaluate the introduction of television have found that television helps in the vocabulary development of young children.…

In order to analyze the California system of community college finance within a national context, a review of recent literature was followed by an intensive study and survey of eight states, chosen to illustrate alternative solutions to California financing problems. National trends among community colleges that emerged included (1) the…

Divided into seven sections, this publication includes discussions of the nature of bilingualism and its implications to curriculum and instruction, the effects of bilingualism and bilingual education, biculturalism and bicultural education, bilingual education materials and assessment instruments, teacher training in bilingual-bicultural…

The student traceback model is described and is used to demonstrate various concepts relative to institutional research methodology. The methodology of the problem-solving institutional researcher includes a wide spectrum of how-to's: how to anticipate issues in higher education and estimate their practical institutional impact; how to develop the…

This report describes the pattern of policy content in the curriculum of Canadian schools of social work and assesses career opportunities for graduates. Seven sections comprise the document. Section I describes the study. Section II defines social policy as a process and as a framework for action and cites tasks of social work education including…

This collection of nine papers, prepared for a conference held at Northwestern University in 1978, presents varied perspectives on applied problem solving. Assessing applied problem solving, planning for interest and motivation, developing a theory, reviewing research findings, considering learning disabilities, analyzing through information…

Interest in the humanities is being revitalized at community and junior colleges through community forums and town meetings. The idea of melding the community forum with the humanities was at the heart of a national humanities demonstration program, in which 11 community colleges participated by developing model community forum programs based upon…

The effectiveness of a model for determining a minimal cut-off score for criterion-referenced tests was examined. The model, based upon techniques presented originally by Nedelsky and by Angoff, was first used in conjunction with a multiple choice test developed for use in certifying school counselors in Georgia. A "knowledge estimation panel" was…

Simulated tailored tests were used to investigate the relationships between characteristics of the item pool and the computer program, and the reliability and bias of the resulting ability estimates. The computer program was varied to provide for various step sizes (differences in difficulty between successive steps) and different acceptance…