These five issues of "Research in Developmental Education," examine the theoretical models and foundations of developmental education. Included are the following: (1) "Theoretical Foundations of Developmental Education," by Hunter R. Boylan, which examines the behaviorist, humanist, and developmental theories underpinning developmental education;…

This book focuses on the prevention of academic failure through focus on developmental processes (especially development of essential visual skills) within the individual learner. A distinction is made between sight and vision with vision involving the entire person and his/her learning experiences The first chapter examines "The Dynamics of the…

Down Syndrome children (N=229), aged 1-83 months, from Australia, Canada, and Germany were tested using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Test performances on the Bayley's Mental and Motor scales were not dissimilar, leading to the conclusion that young Down Syndrome children from different countries with relatively comparable standards of…

This book describes the Reflective Judgment Model (RJM) and provides a comprehensive review of the research on it and the Reflective Judgment Interview (RJI). Chapter 1 defines reflective judgment as an often neglected aspect of critical thinking. Chapter 2 discusses stage-related assumptions that underlie RJM and relates RJM to current work in…

Moral education is becoming one of the most important topics in school systems today. Schools are fast learning that they must do something to try to teach students good values and even more to teach students how to reason about values. Research studies suggest that athletes are less morally reasoned and less sportsmanlike than their peer groups;…

The purpose of this report is to examine how well students in Massachusetts are meeting the Goals of Education, as measured by the Massachusetts Education Assessment Program (MEAP). The first section of this report defines various levels of proficiency and then compares different groups within the student population in terms of the percentages…

Older learners are often led into adult education by a quest for self-development and the wish to make meaning of the human experience. Adult educators should explore and appreciate the process of human development in the last stage. In old age there can be a merging of the knowledge of the body (life's stories) and of the spirit (developmental…

A symposium on year-round schooling was held to provide a framework to enable camp professionals and school personnel to better understand the dynamics of year-round education, year-round schools, camping, and the areas where they are (1) compatible or (2) mutually exclusive. The purposes of the symposium were: (1) to explore the developmental…

There has been a long-standing debate about the proper relationships between teacher preparation and liberal education. The current wave of concern about the quality of teacher preparation, combined with enrollment declines in colleges of education, has led to major reorganization in some institutions which have moved significant portions of the…

Presented and discussed is a model which can be used by educators who want to develop an interdisciplinary map skills program in geography and mathematics. The model assumes that most children in elementary schools perform cognitively at Piaget's concrete operational stage, that readiness for map skills can be assessed with Piagetian or…

The classroom environment elicits social comparison behavior in which a student uses peers' performance as a gauge for his own self-assessment. Social comparison as it relates to ability is a four phase sequential process. In phase one, stimulation of social comparison is elicited through developmentally-determined cognitive capacities and motives…

The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between self-disclosure and intimacy status. Sixty-four women and 32 men (mean age = 27.44) were asked to complete the Greene Self-Disclosure Sentence Blank in response to one of two conditions, each of which specified a hypothetical target person for the self-revealing communication: a…

Sections of this guide deal with an overview of the English language arts K-12 program, organizing for instruction, and evaluation. It is intended to be used as a resource for teachers. The overview section begins with a rationale, major emphases, general student language needs, K-12 learning goals, and changes in emphases that are necessary as…

Little research on the relationship between self knowledge and teacher effectiveness seems to exist. The Self Knowledge Project, a study of more than 1,000 people of various ages, identified 4 distinct stages of self knowledge development: (1) elemental; (2) situational; (3) pattern; and (4) process. The Self Knowledge Project created the…

Sex differences on Perry's stages of epistemological development were investigated in a study of 100 freshmen (50 men and 50 women) at a large midwestern university. A semi-structured interview probed six domains related to Perry's theory, including the role of the learner, instructor, and peers in the learning situation, the question of…