Attitude measurement has had a somewhat chequered history since the possibility of achieving it successfully was demonstrated by Thurstone in 1929. It has been an important area in science education, particularly in the context of falling uptakes in the physical sciences in many countries, and there have been many attempts to measure learner…

Designing an EAP course requires collaboration among various concerned stakeholders, including students, subject teachers, institutional administrators and EAP teachers themselves. While needs analysis is often considered fundamental to EAP, alternative research methodologies may be required to facilitate meaningful collaboration between these…

The argument of the paper proposes that learning grows out of motivation which depends upon recognising and valuing the distinctive qualities of each and the cultural traditions they embody. If learning expresses a journey between worlds, the challenge for the school is to create a learning community that brings together local and cosmopolitan in…

When Palmdale School District and Pivot Learning Partners entered into their first contract in 2006, neither organization foresaw the magnitude and complexity the relationship would take over time. Pivot Learning Partners (formerly known as Springboard Schools) is a non-profit service provider that first entered the Palmdale School District…

Information Systems (IS) departments are facing challenging times as enrollments decline and the field evolves, thus necessitating large-scale curriculum changes. Our experience shows that many IS departments are in such a predicament as they have not evolved content quickly enough to keep it relevant, they do a poor job coordinating curriculum…

Higher education institutions undertake a range of approaches to evaluating and making judgments about the quality of their e-learning provision. This paper begins by exploring benchmarking as one current strategy in common use in universities to identify and implement quality practices: from the use of checklists (for example, of best practices…

The widespread problem of substance abuse negatively affects users and their families. This paper provides a methodological review of empirical studies that focused on systemic interventions (particularly marital and family therapy) in the treatment of substance abuse. The articles examined here focused on engaging the addict in treatment,…

This book maintains that educational reform cannot occur in a vacuum. The theme of the book is that the problems faced by education are systemic and deeply embedded in family and social problems. Schools themselves must assume responsibility for change, and change must occur in the ways in which schools relate to outside constituencies. The…

These five papers are from a symposium that was facilitated by Susan Dougherty at the 1995 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD). "The Relationship between Productivity and Work Team Autonomy and Team Process Effectiveness" (Candice L. Phelan) reports that correlation analysis of results of a study of 21 work teams revealed…

Employers, unions, and government agencies are placing increasing emphasis on evaluation of workplace literacy programs. Because workplace literacy programs are generally short, focused on workplace-specific literacy tasks, and small, the standardized tests that have traditionally been used to assess school programs are inappropriate for…

The Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh (CK:P), a technology-based project, introduced the Internet into all levels of the Pittsburgh Public Schools during 1993-97. This is a case study of the ideology, strategies, and process of the CK:P project describes the project's activities, examines the project in light of school-reform literature, and uses its…

Describing competency only in terms of individuals' technical capabilities is fast becoming inadequate. Practitioners in the 21st century must be able to apply the technical capabilities of their professions as they work with others within and external to their professions. A perception of the professional as a package of capabilities is the…

The Further Education Development Agency conducted two research studies of issues related to recording student attendance and responding to student absence. In the first study, absenteeism in five further education (FE) colleges in Britain was examined to determine the main causes of student absenteeism and administrative systems/procedures to…

This paper offers a new conceptual framework for thinking about school restructuring by examining the meaning and implications of restructuring as a school improvement strategy. Conceptualization efforts are organized around a set of fundamental questions: (1) What is the meaning of restructuring? (2) What makes restructuring necessary? (3) What…

This paper reviews two of the major issues affecting community colleges, funding and governance, examining them from a systems perspective--specifically in relation to selected theories of organizational learning disabilities and systems archetypes. The first section of the paper provides background on funding and governance issues as they relate…