This paper discusses the concept of literature as a moral laboratory in which author and readers run complex thought experiments about human actions and their consequences. The paper warns that discussion of the role of literature in building moral character and moral communities needs to be based on a better understanding of what literature is…

This book is designed to be a resource that embodies the progressive concepts of life-connected topics by focusing on the search for self-understanding. It uses adolescent literature that is prize winning and much prized by young people, and it uses this literature to focus on difficult topics that adults (parents, teachers, and the school's…

Guided by the cognitive-contextual theory of J. H. Grych and F. D. Fincham (1990), which emphasizes the importance of children's perceptions of conflict as well as conflict characteristics and contextual factors, this study investigated children's appraisals of various types of simulated marital conflict. Seventy Latino children, aged 7 to 12…

The personal effects of racial discrimination were studied through the responses of 50 adolescents enrolled in a precollege summer program to hypothetical scenarios. Half of the participants were female, 2 were European American, 8 Asian American, 21 African American, and 19 Latino. Expected response categories derived from the work of J. Feagin…

While learning to quilt, and subsequently seeing quilting everywhere, one teacher decided to make a quilt with the theme of herself as a teacher. Quilts are stories told in visual form, and connections exist between curriculum theory and quilting. During a Master's program, the teacher learned about various curriculum theorists and was amazed at…

In Kentucky, the administrative roles of the superintendent and the principal have received considerable attention from state-level policymakers since the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Although there are comprehensive, ongoing assessment procedures for Kentucky principals and superintendents, there are no state-level…

This paper describes the outcomes of a study that tested a path model designed to predict the quality of instructional interactions between teachers and students in 46 heterogeneous general elementary education classrooms in 14 schools. The quality of instruction interactions was measured for three groups of students, students with disabilities,…

This manual explains how to construct a questionnaire. It is intended for the novice researcher who has little experience in questionnaire construction. The first seven chapters discuss the following seven stages in questionnaire development: (1) establishing the guiding questions; (2) operationalizing and clarifying the guiding questions; (3)…

Emotion scripts provide children with culturally meaningful emotional experiences and plans of action for managing feelings and the circumstances surrounding emotional experiences. In an effort to understand how developing children acquire these emotion scripts, two studies described here investigated how children deploy emotion scripts to manage…

State legislators across the country have responded with new efforts to change the authority and practice of the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Since 1992, 48 of the 51 state legislatures (including the District of Columbia) have made substantive changes to their juvenile justice laws. This report presents the first comprehensive analysis…

Opening in 1981 to moviegoers in Japan, France, and the United States, "The Gods Must Be Crazy" became an international hit. Set in Botswana, the film covers a relatively small geographic area yet nevertheless can open classroom discussions about how many cultures and how much cultural diversity can exist in a small area. It has three…

In this study some alternative item selection criteria for adaptive testing are proposed. These criteria take into account the uncertainty of the ability estimates. A general weighted information criterion is suggested of which the usual maximum information criterion and the suggested alternative criteria are special cases. A simulation study was…

Three methods for the estimation of the reliability of single dichotomous items are discussed. All methods are based on the assumptions of nondecreasing and nonintersecting item response functions and the Mokken model of double monotonicity. Based on analytical and Monte Carlo studies, it is concluded that one method is superior to the other two…

A case study analyzed the dialogue in three student-professor dialogue journals written in conjunction with a content area reading course and its related field-based practicum. The three participating students one in English, one in social studies, and one in biology, were selected from a class of 14 students based on representation of predominant…

This paper presents the results of a study to identify the specific needs graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in speech communication have while teaching. Six GTAs completed a description of their experience as GTAs, maintained a day-by-day teaching log and participated in a group discussion. The paper uses a qualitative-phenomenological approach…