Junior and senior students (N=175) majoring in elementary education, recreation, and forestry were given an ecological attitude inventory which measured: (1) level of environmental knowledge; (2) verbal, actual, and emotional commitment to the environment; and (3) the degree to which they spoke, behaved, and felt positively toward the environment.…

This report describes the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a project designed to keep parents, school officials, and policy makers abreast of the educational realities. Information is collected and reported at regular intervals concerning the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of elementary and secondary school students. NAEP has…

A study was conducted to examine Americans' international news consumption. It was hypothesized that (1) television would be the preferred medium for international news; (2) the public would be satisfied with its preferred medium, although watchers more so than readers; (3) the majority of people who would claim that they know something about a…

This article describes a multicultural counseling course designed specifically for school counselor trainees. Results from a course evaluation are also offered and described. Analyses of the pre- and post-tests indicated an increase in the four dimensions (i.e., multicultural knowledge, multicultural awareness, multicultural skills, and…

A study involving 26 children, aged five to eight years, employed a clinical interview method to examine the children's recognition and knowledge of rule violations in communication. The rules, derived from H. P. Grice's "be cooperative" principle, referred mainly to the maxim "be perspicuous, unequivocal, clear, and…

In order to determine Puerto Rican parents' understanding of and attitudes toward bilingual education, an attitude inventory was administered to seventy-five parents of children in bilingual programs and seventy-five parents whose children were not in such programs. Parents whose children were in bilingual programs were found to have a higher…

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of knowledge schema training and text organization on the comprehension and recall of scientific prose. The first experiment tested whether or not knowledge schema training improves processing and recall of a passage on plate tectonics (32 college subjects served as subjects). The second…

Defining a "misconception" as an error of translation (transformation, correspondence, interpolation, interpretation) between two different kinds of information which causes students to have incorrect expectations, a Taxonomy of Errors has been developed to examine student misconceptions in an introductory biology course for science…

Because social attitudes constitute a salient feature of the environment in which people grow old, the measurement of attitudes toward the aged has been of concern to gerontologists for many years. An instrument is needed to provide independent estimates of information about the aged from attitudes toward aged persons. Undergraduates (N=311)…

The two-parameter graded response latent trait model was applied under various conditions to two simulation data sets and to data obtained from a Likert-type attitude scale. The purpose was to investigate the invariance property of the item and person parameter estimates for polychotomously scored data. Correlation and regression analyses, as well…

A top-level structure learning strategy is described in this paper. Topics covered in the paper are (1) strategic use of knowledge about top-level structure, including how the strategy works, the spontaneous use of the strategy, and the acquired use of the strategy; (2) fundamental steps in programs of instruction involving the top-level structure…

Using computer controlled text presentation that permitted the measurement of reading time for individual sentences, a study tested two hypotheses concerning how schemata guide reading comprehension. The focusing hypothesis suggested that the schemata activated by the reader's perspective might identify relevant information to which additional…

In this follow-up study, an examination of the level of awareness of and knowledge about the Emergency Medical Services System in Region J of North Carolina was made to detect any changes from the earlier survey which might be due to a six-month campaign publicizing the system. To further pinpoint the channels through which the citizens of the…

The Survey of Oceanic Attitudes and Knowledge (SOAK) was developed as a method of measuring knowledge and attitudes of tenth grade students and relating those attributes to the students' marine experiences. Fifteen coastal and fifteen inland schools in Virginia were randomly selected as sources of subjects for the study. Analyses of data from 787…

A STUDY ON FARMERS' USE OF SUGGESTED PRACTICES IN HANDLING ALFALFA CROP PRODUCTION WAS CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE (1) IF SELECTED PERSONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS MIGHT AFFECT HAY PRODUCTION METHODS, (2) IF A DISCREPANCY EXISTS BETWEEN THE FARMER'S LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE OF QUALITY HAY PRODUCTION PRACTICES AND HIS USE OF THESE PRACTICES, AND (3)…