Assessed knowledge and attitude changes resulting from home viewing of a Cousteau Society documentary on marine mammals and compares these changes with those resulting from a science teacher's presentation on the documentary's script. Results show increased and retainable knowledge and temporary change in attitudes among ninth-grade students.…

Presents findings of a study (by Rosanne Fortner) which determined: (1) the impact of a Jacques Cousteau television documentary on ninth-grade students' knowledge and attitudes; (2) whether the same information presented by a classroom teacher would have a similar impact; and (3) if knowledge/attitude changes are retained for two weeks. (JN)

Compared Black and White students' news acquisition habits and knowledge of current events on the State, national, and international levels. Among 8th graders, Blacks ranked lower than Whites in knowledge, but no significant differences between groups were found among 11th graders. All students were deficient in their knowledge of State news. (GC)

Relationships among ethnicity, sex, and father's occupation with heart health knowledge and nutrition behavior were studied in Texas seventh- and eighth-grade students. Findings indicated a strong need for heart health education and for culturally relevant nutrition education. (Author/CJB)

Reviews a study designed to determine whether some of the problems of poor readers are related to inadequately developed story schemata or the inability to use schemata. Discusses the need for teaching strategies to enhance children's knowledge of story structure. (RBW)

Laments journalism students' lack of general world knowledge and describes an abbreviated general knowledge curriculum implemented in a newswriting course. (HTH)

Results from three cognitive tests revealed few sex differences among 11-year-old students (N=2065). Neither question style (multiple-choice or structured) nor content (masculine or feminine) has any great effect on sex differences in performance. However, boys performed markedly better than girls on tests of spatial ability and mechanical…

This study is a major addition to the few previous investigations of the association between number of years of education and information retention and acquisition by adults both after few and after many years beyond the close of formal schooling. (Editor)

This report describes an attempt to apply a critical empirical test to some predictions from Ausubel's theory concerning the subsuming role of advance organizers. Alternative explanations are proposed and subsequent predictions tested. (BT)

In this article, we studied the paradigm of observation which has been restructured since the beginning of modern sciences. In order to interpret this observation paradigm, an expression, "observation without seeing" was formulated. It was noticed that our interpretation of the observation depends on our knowledge and experiences. Finally, it was…

This study describes (a) potential mathematics education leaders' professional development experiences, awareness, beliefs, and attitudes and (b) the subsequent changes in these constructs as they participated in a leadership development program. The context of the professional development was a three-week institute and a year-long follow-up. The…

To document the effectiveness of instruction, a retrospective pre-post type of evaluation was used to evaluate the effectiveness of a continuing education program designed for adults involved in community economic development. At the conclusion of the learning experience, the 35 participants were asked to complete a brief questionnaire that…

This study explored some aspects of reasoning needed to complete science performance assessments, i.e., students' hands-on investigations scored for the scientific justifiability of the findings. The reasoning demands of science performance assessments were studied focusing on three dimensions identified from a previous analysis of data from the…

Whether performance assessments can be claimed to be more inclusive than traditional assessments was studied in an investigation of whether a student's perceptions of control can be detected in a performance assessment score. It was hypothesized that students' perceptions of control would show no effect on their scores on an objective test of…

Four studies examined the relationship between students' ability and the learning processes the students engaged in when they acquired knowledge from their classroom experiences. The research was based on a model of learning processes during knowledge acquisition that identifies critical learning experiences and predicts what is learned and…