Fifth and sixth grade students from the State College Area School District (Pennsylvania) participated in a 5-day resident outdoor education program to investigate the effectiveness of such a program on the development of cognitive learning processes. Students were divided into experimental and control groups of one fifth and one sixth grade class…

Several studies that were directed towards examining the influence of cognitive factors in sex-related differences in mathematics achievement are reported. Specifically, two lines of research were pursued examining: (1) the relationship between different types of visual-spatial skill and mathematics achievement, and (2) the trainability of…

Reporting on Australia's attempts to aid in the resettlement of European and Asian refugees and other immigrants, this paper focused on the progress of governmental institutions in dealing with migrant problems such as education, employment, and cultural integration. The language barrier, caused by a lack of knowledge of English by the majority of…

Relationships between item bias, item difficulty invariance, Rasch tests of item fit, and item position in a speeded 72-item Michigan State University Vocabulary Placement Test were investigated using 143 black males, 289 black females, 2,953 white males and 3,271 white females. Measures of item bias and item difficulty invariance were determined…

A pilot study was conducted to identify sex role factors which could affect the search for employment and the adjustment to employment for vocational graduates in selected occupational areas. Target employment areas were identified through a review of occupations with a disproportionate composition by one sex or the other. These included…

Psychology department heads throughout the country (1151) were surveyed to learn more about the individuals filling those positions. The response rate was 56 percent, with a usable sample of 86 percent men and 14 percent women. The questionnaire contained 35 multiple-choise items, primarily about characteristics of the school, the job, and the…

Piagetian levels of 126 volunteers (60 males and 66 females) were measured using the Burney Logical Reasoning Test. Findings demonstrated that the six predictor variables succeeded in explaining 58% (pooled male/female sample), 53% (female sample), and 59% (male sample) of the variance in Piagetian cognitive levels. In addition, since prediction…

Five papers discuss issues arising from the Minority Issues Inservice Program, a program to provide inservice training to teachers dealing with minority handicapped children in mainstreamed or other special education settings. The first paper, by C. Greenwood, describes activities of each of the three years of the ongoing program including…

A set of procedures for coding internal state words (those words representing mental states and perceptual experiences), developed for application to data on the language of young children and those with whom they converse, is described in this report. The report first discusses the rationale for studying cultural variation in vocabulary use, the…

Research indicates that most women continue to avoid achievement or excellence in careers considered to be "masculine" fields. One reason for this appears to be that even highly motivated women lack confidence in their abilities and are discouraged from seeking demanding careers by others. Recently, a growing number of older "reentry" women are…

Despite developmental efforts and a relatively larger population growth rate in nonmetro areas since 1970, rural/nonmetro people are still behind their metro counterparts in terms of wage levels, family income, adequacy of housing, and access to essential public services like education and health care. Rural public school education lags behind…

The results and methodology of the South Carolina 1977-78 statewide spring testing program for grades 3, 6, and 11 are presented and discussed. The discussion of the results focuses on a comparison of the 1978 results to national norms, a comparison of 1978 to 1977 results, a performance comparison across grade levels, and a comparison of skill…

The development and validation of the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scales (MMCS) are described. The scales are distinctive because they measure locus of control specific to two goals--achievement and affiliation. Half of the items concern success, and half concern failure experiences. Results of four validity studies with under…

An innovative project in training teachers for community development was begun in three remote villages in Sri Lanka in 1975 by one of the country's 28 teacher colleges. Under supervision by a resident Teacher Educator, teacher trainees were placed in villages for two weeks per term not only to teach the two courses per day required by all of the…

Current research suggests that the difference in mathematics achievement between males and females in and beyond the junior high school grades is a direct consequence of the decision by many girls not to take advanced mathematics courses during high school. The first section of this paper indicates at least three factors influence this decision:…