This pamphlet describes ways in which parents and others interested in education can effectively evaluate the usefulness of educational research. Almost everything that happens in the schools is related to educational research. Parents and concerned others should appreciate its benefits, but should be aware that: not all research is done well or…

This monograph examines educational research and some of the myths surrounding it. The results of educational research strongly influence education. Much research, past and present, is biased. It is necessary to understand that race and sex bias can affect research, to understand how to determine whether bias is present, and to know how to…

The importance of research in literacy is that it provides some routes to greater efficiency in literacy provision. Research from the past shows how important reading and writing have been over the centuries. Literacy was often invested with social and moral power as well, and religious literacy was the predominant form of reading and writing from…

This report examines current state practices and procedures for assessing vocational education programs in light of the evaluation requirements of the 1976 Vocational Education Act Amendments. The report is based on information obtained through personal and telephone interviews with vocational education administrative personnel in the states,…

The Research Institute for the Study of Learning Disabilities, established at Teachers College, Columbia University, was guided by the postulation that academic failure experienced by learning-disabled children results from interaction between the way they process information and the information processing demands of the instructional methods…

In response to a request from the California state legislature, a plan is proposed for obtaining information on the number of community college students eligible to transfer to the University of California and the California State University; the characteristics of those students who do and do not transfer; and the persistence and performance of…

Approaches to studying the relationships between stress and school organizational sources of stress were examined. Rather than sampling a number of schools and school average data indicating school health and stress levels in these schools, simple teacher samples and teacher-level analyses were used. For a sample of 1300 high school teachers in…

Several methods for determining priorities for research in agricultural education can be cited. These include the following: to rely on individual initiative, as has been done in the past; to get organized as a profession and reach agreement regarding research priorities at the national, regional, or state levels; to wait for federal and state…

Research on the quality of foreign medical graduates (FMG) in terms of their competence or manifest abilities as measured by examinations, and their performance or actual behavior is briefly reviewed. In addition, some of the methodological problems that make research on foreign medical graduates difficult to interpret are critiqued, and…

In order to identify the determinants of American Indian and Alaska Native earnings, labor force participation, and labor supply, data from the Bureau of the Census' 1976 national Survey of Income and Education, which included 3,848 American Indians and Alaska Natives, was analyzed. Comparisons with blacks and whites were made on the basis of wage…

The movement toward integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods within the same study has been most evident in social policy research. Four major approaches to integrating can be identified in recent studies. The sequential, the parallel, and the fused models have been rather widely used. The interactive model, developed during…

Empirical research literature on the relationship between faculty bargaining and faculty reward systems was reviewed. The emphasis was on five areas that may be affected by bargaining: the rationalization of institutional policies and practicies, particularly those related to personnel issues; a rationalization of grievance procedures, with a…

A graduate internship program in applied anthropology at the University of South Florida (Tampa) is described. The program was designed to train graduates for responsible positions in human service settings at local, state, national, and international levels. Students specialize in one of three applied tracks: public archaeology, urban…

Instrumentation, task content, the limited options of success or failure, methodology and assumptions are substantive issues which question the validity of conclusions made about human subjects in studies of achievement motivation and learned helplessness. A review of learned helplessness studies outlines the number and source of subjects, kinds…

Educational researchers can provide unusual perspectives to their research if they include humor and irony. Looking at topics from the reverse (the critical attitude, the aesthetic perspective) allows researchers to see patterns, details, and meanings which are normally hidden from view. This aesthetic perspective enables artists, critics, and…