Teachers' professional improvement programs mustbe individualized according to the teacher's self-assessment of the problem and provide for self-involvement in the improvement process. (MW)

A chronicle of controversies over testing (heredity-environment, experimenter bias, social class bias, tests as sorters for schools and society) and the difficulties that ensue when the scholar enters the arena of public policy. The thesis is offered that the hearing given to social evidence and issues depends on the times and the audience, with…

To properly assess the problem of adult literacy in the United States and to develop successful intervention programs, it is critical to view literacy not just as a technical proficiency but as a culturally shaped set of practices engaged in by individuals and groups, literate and illiterate. A successful literacy campaign must incorporate…

Reported are a series of studies revealing developmental and individual differences among preschool children on relationships between gender-based knowledge, gender constancy, gender schematic processing, recognition memories for gender-typed information, and flexibility, sequencing, and understanding of gender scripts. Alternative approaches for…

A knowledge of an individual's preferences is essential to create an effective reward or reinforcer program for individuals who have either a need to reduce maladaptive behaviors or to increase adaptive behaviors. The goal of the Missouri Automated Reinforcer Assessment (MARA) project is to develop an efficient yet thorough automated reinforcer…

Contrasting traditional linear media (in which all learners proceed through the instructional materials in an essentially fixed sequence) with interactive technologies and hypermedia (in which two learners may take different paths through the same instructional materials), this paper highlights the importance of recording and analyzing the…

There is widespread concern about the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs by adolescents and young adults. It has yet to be determined whether drug use in itself is invariably associated with disruptive or problem use of drugs. Additionally, drug use may vary by frequency and quantity of ingestion which may be differentially related to…

Research has demonstrated that learning style preferences and how they are taken into account are closely related to learner achievement and satisfaction. The Learning Style Inventory (LSI) was the first comprehensive approach to the assessment of an individual's learning style in grades 3 through 12. The Productivity Environmental Preference…

Human development has two different stories to tell. One describes the growth of the universal characteristics that are present in all human beings because humans possess a particular set of genes. Four examples of biologically prepared, universal characteristics in the psychological growth of children are the growth of memory, of moral sense and…

To meet the social service needs of the elderly, many communities across the nation are developing programs to foster social support systems involving elderly volunteers. The System to Assure Elderly Services (STAES) located in St. Louis City (Missouri), mobilizes and trains elderly persons to become volunteers who serve other elderly persons. A…

A study is described which investigated the differences between English-as-a-second-language (ESL) writers and native-English-speaking writers and examined closely a range of ESL writers and their composing processes. The procedures used were those used by Sondra Perl in a study of the composing processes of unskilled college writers (1979).…

One thousand two hundred-forty-one elementary, 459 middle, and 597 high school teachers and their supervisors and principals (N=93), (N=56), and (N=60), respectively, from 53 elementary, 16 middle and 15 high schools located in a large urban district in the Southeast were surveyed to determine: (1) instructional problems reported by teachers; (2)…

This study sought to determine if parents of gifted and talented learning-disabled children differed from parents of other gifted/talented children in their expectations of educational programming and parent-school relations. Subjects included 265 parents who were members of The Gifted and Talented Association of Montgomery County (Maryland) or…

To reduce disciplinary cases without using suspension or alienating teachers and parents is a challenging task for principals. Forcing teachers to tolerate unruly student behavior is no solution. When both teachers and principals experience failure in eliciting desirable student attitudes and behavior, some relief measures are appropriate. This…

Using data gathered by way of ethnographic research techniques in an intensive collaborative investigation of the classroom practice of two experienced teachers, each teacher's uniqueness is deliniated, and it is illustrated with examples of classroom practice, what it means for each teacher to know what to do in spontaneous practice.…