This article attempts to construct an analytical framework to reflect upon the deeply contested area of 14-19 education and training policy in England following the publication of the Government's White Paper "14-19 education and skills". We argue that the evolution of 14-19 policy over the last 15 years, culminating in the publication…

The undermining effect of extrinsic reward on intrinsic motivation remains unproven. The key unresolved issues are construct invalidity (all four definitions are unproved and two are illogical); measurement unreliability (the free-choice measure requires unreliable, subjective judgments to infer intrinsic motivation); inadequate experimental…

Group-randomized trials (GRTs)--studies that evaluate the efficacy or effectiveness of interventions occurring at the group level--are increasingly used to assess the effects of school-based prevention programs on behavioral outcomes of children and adolescents. These designs pose many implementation and design challenges for school…

This paper discusses the importance of pilot studies in the development and implementation of a research project, focusing on the use of a pilot study to revise conceptual and methodological issues in dissertation research on higher education leadership. It examines the hermeneutic circle, as described by M. Heidegger, that stresses the importance…

This paper reports 20 unsolved problems in educational measurement and points toward what seem to be promising avenues of solution. The first group of concerns involves validity, posing the problems of obtaining suitable validity criteria, determining and measuring the predictor variables that best characterize the traits and proficiencies of…

Although most community college faculty are not engaged in research, community college settings can provide research opportunities for those faculty members determined to overcome the considerable obstacles. At Whatcom Community College, in Washington, for example, constraints facing faculty seeking to conduct research include limited access to…

This paper discusses several considerations and techniques in doing research which attempts to measure the effects of visual images on viewers. For example, to describe precisely the effects of some element of a visual image or series of images, researchers must be able to specify the institutional context in which the image is presented and…

Community colleges generally conduct little research. Further, there is no generally accepted national research agenda for community colleges, no consistently funded national agency charged with studying the institutions as unique entities, and few educational researchers directing their attention toward them. The research that is undertaken on…

Although public acceptance of Head Start is high, public understanding of what the program does remains limited. Studies of Head Start to date have been insufficient in quantity and scope. In November 1994, the Roundtable on Head Start Research began a series of discussions of new directions for Head Start research. The roundtable looked at…

In Pioneer Institute's November 1995 "Dialogue," nine school-choice advocates critiqued a draft manuscript of "Who Chooses, Who Loses? Culture, Institutions, and the Unequal Effects of School Choice," edited by Harvard professors Richard Elmore, Gary Orfield, and Bruce Fuller. This publication contains the response of Professor Fuller to the…

Researchers in vocational education (VE) often are not viewed as having made substantial contributions to VE practice. The VE literature and the poor attendance at American Vocational Education Research Association sessions by vocational educators are evidence of the gaps that have developed between VE research and practice, basic and applied…

A majority of the empirical studies on questioning has focused on the effects of prior knowledge on the number and type of questions asked. Research has not been able to find support for the frequency hypothesis and the specificity hypothesis in questioning. The focus of these studies is briefly criticized, and a detailed critical assessment is…

The Bean and Metzner Nontraditional Undergraduate Student Attrition Model appeared to be a good model to address community college student attrition because it takes into account the environmental variables that colleges must consider to enhance persistence. A study was conducted to determine how well the Bean and Metzner Model fit with community…

Two studies appear to reach unsatisfactory conclusions regarding causes of low math achievement among American Indians. Leap (1988) studied math problem-solving strategies among low-math-achieving fourth- and fifth-grade Ute reservation students. He concluded that faulty or cumbersome problem-solving strategies were directly linked to Ute language…

The main purpose of this paper on a study of Indonesian concepts of human nature is to demonstrate practical instances of cooperation between Western and Third World researchers. It is asserted that Western researchers must understand the general views of human nature held by individuals in Third World countries before they can apply theories in…