Issues critical for research on conceptual change in students are reviewed, drawing on a body of research with children and adolescents aged 5 to 16 years. Issues are examined in light of science education. It is proposed that science education should aim at fostering in students the development of ways of looking at phenomena that are as close as…

The impact of large-scale testing on curriculum policies at district and school levels and on science teaching at the classroom level was studied for British Columbia (Canada). Other factors affecting teaching practices were considered. In 1983, the Province reintroduced centrally set and graded province-wide examinations for grade 12, following a…

The papers presented at this meeting of the annual conference of the Quebec Association of Collegiate Pedagogy and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges covered the following topics: (1) Students and Teachers, including papers focusing on faculty and student characteristics and concerns; (2) Development of Human Resources, including…

A study was done of perceptions of equality of opportunities for access to social resources and of social cleavages in Israeli society among Israeli students in grades 8 and 9. The study population included 9,000 students in 273 classes in a national sample of 47 secular junior high schools. Subjects were asked to assess equality of opportunities…

A project evaluated the overall effectiveness of the Advanced Courses Development Programme (ACDP) of the Scottish Vocational Education Council. A peer review of selected Higher National (HN) unit specifications involved 195 subject experts who completed evaluation questionnaires on specifications in their specialist areas. The main body of the…

A discussion of the state of second language education and English teaching in Britain focuses on the role of applied linguistics in the field. Four major points are made: that (1) books on language are not common in the syllabi of language teacher education; (2) current philosophies on language teaching appear to be either reactionary or romantic…

The need for second language training in the United Kingdom for trade and industry is examined, and the role of City Technology Colleges (CTCs) in providing such training is discussed. It is argued that reliance on English is no longer sufficient for trade in the world market, since the most important markets for British goods and services are…

A study examined training in the retail trade in Spain. Employment, work, and training patterns in Spain's retail sector were researched, and case studies of five retail firms were conducted. Two retailers were too small to afford their own training organization but had formulated personnel policies providing for training. The third case was a…

This study sought to determine whether the motivational patterns of first-year university students differed between courses of varying difficulty levels, and the nature of the interactions between self-efficacy, attributional style, and academic achievement. A total of 509 students majoring in history, physical education, mathematics, and private…

Integration of environmental education and second language instruction is discussed, with two purposes: to describe educators' efforts to protect the planet's deteriorating environment, and to explore what destructive attitudes and actions that have led to environmental devastation have their counterparts in language education methods. The…

Based on a review of 335 research studies conducted in 1972-1987, the effectiveness of various methods, approaches, and techniques for teaching English as a Second Language in Thailand is analyzed. The information is presented in three sections: methods that worked; methods that did not work; and methods that appeared to work. In each section, the…

Canadian financial services organizations, and retail banking in particular, are changing rapidly due to the spiraling costs of labor, the influence of computers, and global competition. These changes are especially affecting bank tellers, who will need new skills to adapt to the changing workplace. To develop a timely and relevant training…

An empirical approach is adopted in this paper to explore a possible model for prediction of students' science achievement in China and the United States. Construction of the model is based on the ninth-grade data base from Phase 2 of the Second International Education Association Science Study (SISS) in the United States and the SISS Extension…

This monograph presents 14 brief papers on special education in other countries or comparisons between countries. Papers have the following titles and authors: "Legal Foundations of Special Education: A Comparison of the United States Public Law 94-142 and the China Compulsory Education Law" (Hong Bo Wang et al.); "International…

A study at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman investigated the listening comprehension problems of students who were non-native speakers of English (NNS), in lectures by native English-speaking professors. Two professors with no previous experience in teaching non-native speakers introduced geology in 4 weeks of lectures. Instances of vocabulary…