Disillusionment with professional/scientific knowledge and trust in practitioner knowledge have led to renewed interest in action technologies. Action research, action learning, participatory research, popular education, and collaborative inquiry can bridge the gap between theory and practice. (SK)

Presents the responses of several well-known scholars--David Bloome, Joanne M. Golden, Carol D. Lee, Susan Hynds, Michael Pressley, and Timothy Shanahan--to Alan C. Purves's criticism of educational research in the English language arts for its redundancy, its staleness, its reliance on jargon and labels, and its flawed methodology. (TB)

Presents results of experiments conducted on four versions of the Science Library Catalog (SLC), a Dewey decimal-based hierarchical browsing system implemented in HyperCard without a keyboard. The SLC approach helps children overcome problems with typing, spelling, vocabulary, and Boolean logic. (70 references) (AEF)

Reports results of investigation of reasons why a majority of practitioners refused to participate in a field-based psychotherapy process research project and to learn from them what would be required to enlist their future participation in this type of research. Main reasons were insufficient time, unwillingness to audiotape sessions, and clients…

Discusses the potential impact of computers in qualitative health research. Describes the original goals, design, and implementation of NUDIST, a qualitative computing software. Argues for evaluation of the impact of computer techniques and for an opening of debate among program developers and users to address the purposes and power of computing…

Dallas school district attempted to determine whereabouts of students who did not return to school in fall. Found a large portion of "no-show" students matriculating elsewhere. Previously, these students would have been classified as dropouts and used to determine the dropout rate. The new accounting procedure reduced the annual dropout rate from…

Practitioners and theorists do not articulate the purposes, theory, and practices of social studies adequately because they lack a basic understanding of the historical background. Examples of myths that hinder research and the development of social studies as a field are given as the field's history is traced. (SLD)

Research has posited a set of rather obvious, ordinary, and predictable factors making up an effective school. Three case studies from Britain, Africa, and Thailand are used to explore different contexts for school administration and how the resulting administrative reality can contribute to school effectiveness. Reforms cannot succeed without a…

The relationships among grade, substance assessed, and type of measurement and statistical analysis used in the detection of external validity threats resulting from subject attrition in a modal follow-up study were examined in 6 successive 2-year panels of adolescents, including 4,819 overall stayers and 1,897 dropouts. (SLD)

Analysis of hypothetical data with dependent responses demonstrates how information loss caused by the overt response scale has an unknown influence on effect sizes in moderated regression analysis. The number of scale steps measuring the dependent variable results in a form of systematic error that alters interaction effect sizes. (SLD)

Fourteen adults who participated in planning their course were compared with 15 controls in a teacher-planned course. Findings suggest that participation in planning does not significantly influence achievement, satisfaction, or classroom environment, nor does environment influence satisfaction or achievement. (SK)

This paper examined the assessment of second-language proficiency in 157 research articles published in 5 language journals from 1988 through 1992, finding 4 major conventions for the assessment of language proficiency: (1) impressionistic judgment; (2) institutional status; (3) in-house measures; and (4) standardized test scores. (64 references)…

This commentary responds to a critique (EC 601 711) of a paper (EC 211 387) concerning use of cluster analysis to develop a taxonomy of lifestyles of families with severely mentally retarded children. The commentary considers the model to be useful in social science inquiry, and properly validated when using cluster analytic techniques. (JDD)

Examined the effects of type of distribution and type of response scale on observed integration patterns in five, six, and seven year olds. Findings showed that the effect of two factors, age and type of scale, were significant. (SH)

Criticizes Calvin Veltman's methodology in "The Future of the Spanish Language in the United States," in which he concludes that a majority of U.S.-born Spanish-dominant speakers are abandoning Spanish and becoming English speakers. Suggests that English language usage does not necessarily indicate English proficiency. Discusses…