The attributions of success and failure in a course in nursing research design and statistics were measured using a modified version of the Mathematics Attribution Scale. Eight subscales were formed by combining hypothetical success or failure events paired with each attribution category. The scales were success-task, success-environment,…

This handbook, issued in conjunction with the Governor's "Agenda for Excellence in Pennsylvania Public Schools," provides recommendations for revising promotion policies and practices in Pennsylvania schools. After a brief introduction, the results of a survey of promotion and retention practices are presented in summary form, followed…

An interim status report is presented on a study of predictors to aid in reducing the 35-40% dropout/failure rate in general chemistry at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College, Perkinston Campus. Data from 1974-75 and 1975-76 were used to develop a formula whereby potentially weak students could be identified before they failed or dropped out…

This paper focuses on the evaluation of programs and policies designed to promote gender equity in schools and to raise awareness in general about gender issues in urban education. It raises the following problems: (1) How to frame and define gender as an important issue in urban education; (2) How to decide where and by what criteria to…

The evaluation expectations for supervisors observing teacher effectiveness in the classroom are discussed. The classroom observer can identify and describe teaching effectiveness. A trained supervisor should have many frameworks for observing teachers based on the needs of the teacher, type of lesson, and maturity of the students. The use of…

National Assessment of Educational Progress data in reading, mathematics, and science for Caucasian children were analyzed. Using regression analysis for three age groups, nine, thirteen, and seventeen year olds, a trend analysis was plotted. The changing achievement relationships between these students relative to their classmates and their age…

A study investigated the educational value of retaining low achieving elementary school students in the same grade for an additional year. Subjects were 56 students who had completed at least one grade level beyond the grade in which they had been retained. The students had each been tested with the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills during the…

Many factors that contribute to a negative school climate also cause discipline problems. Our schools are "rigged," like gambling casinos, in that they must produce a certain percentage of losers. The present school system, in performing its screening role for society, demands that some fail. Students today are aware of this rigging and the…

Focus is on the institutionalization-termination phase of change in an attempt to explain why innovation fails or why it declines prior to achieving its intended purposes. Four questions are asked: (1) Why do innovations decline or fail after being adopted? (2) In what manner do innovations decline or fail? (3) Why do innovations persist or…

Teachers at Western Illinois University help improve the self-image of students in college remedial English courses in the following ways: (1) they try to alleviate students' feelings of failure through such methods as stressing the acceptability of spoken dialects but pointing out the practical need for writing in Standard English, and…

Mental health center administrators are concerned about persons who contact centers but fail to keep initial appointments. Factors within centers that discourage client follow-through must be identified and changed. Telephone surveys were attempted for 50 such individuals from the youth (N=23) and adult (N=27) team logs of the Weber Mental Health…

A three-phase study was conducted in Alberta, Canada, to determine factors influencing reading achievement and specifically to assess the effects of television viewing on reading achievement. In the first phase, 453 people responded to a survey regarding which factors they felt were important in influencing reading achievement. It was concluded…

This study reports evidence that early childhood programs can have an impact on the academic careers of children from low-income homes. A wide variety of status and process variables were collected by several individual investigators over four waves, or time periods, of data collection. Before pooling data from 14 longitudinal research and…

Under a mastery learning system students can take successive parallel tests with study interspersed between tests until they demonstrate a minimal level of competency. For most students, such procedures increase final performance, yet some may experience repeated subjective failure. Self-worth theory predicts that repeated failure in the face of…

Two lines of argument have been advanced to support the assertion that schooling makes little difference in the efforts of low status people to achieve equality or a fair chance at survival. One says that the genetic inferiority of certain races makes them incapable of benefitting from schooling. Although there is no hard biological evidence to…