The Benton Foundation commissioned a study that reviewed the literature, convened four focus groups, and surveyed 1,000 male and female voters by telephone to determine public opinion about the role of government in providing new communications technologies. Results indicated that Americans want government to have an active role in the debate over…

Teachers' tolerance and their attitudes toward diversity were studied through a survey of 521 graduate and undergraduate students. The majority of the graduate students were teachers pursuing master's degrees, and most of the undergraduates were in preservice teacher education courses. The surveys were related to political, social, and moral…

Smart Start, North Carolina's early childhood initiative, seeks to improve early childhood programs and ensure that all North Carolina children enter school healthy and ready to learn. This study evaluated outcomes related to Smart Start program inclusion of young children with disabilities: (1) access to inclusive programming; (2) quality of…

Three teacher education programs were studied to explore the process of integrating computer technology into the curriculum. The focus of this study was to define the stages that schools, colleges, and departments of education experienced as faculty and students moved from lower to higher levels of computer technology use and integration. Data…

This study reports the out come of a primary qualitative investigation of open and distance learning system of education as a panacea to the problem of socially induced constraints on the acquisition of education, that may lead to the inability to attend higher institutions of learning, acquire certificates, become a qualified skilled worker by…

The globalization of youth culture complicates young people's relationship to democracy as traditionally conceived. More and more young people define themselves as cosmopolitan citizens, connected through popular culture, digital technologies, and migration histories to social geographies outside their own local and national contexts. Despite…

The purpose of this report is to provide an evaluation of the experiences of the 2005-2006 pilot junior kindergarten schools. Data sources included administrative data provided by the Department of Education (DOE) as well as surveys and focus group interviews conducted with pilot school teachers and principals. Surveys were returned from 113…

What are the factors that made college studies easier or more difficult for students with and without disabilities? What are the obstacles and what are the facilitators? These are the questions we investigated in a sample of 74 students with disabilities (excluding students who only reported having a learning disability) and to 154 students…

The focus group method has rapidly gained credibility among researchers in many fields, including public health researchers. The increased use of focus groups by public health researchers has underscored the demonstrable need for the capacity to apply this method of research among populations with limited abilities in or cultural resistance to…

This paper looks at how institutional perceptions of marginalized groups of students affect their achievement, and argues that an "identifying process" involving students' own construction of themselves is necessary to academic success. In New Zealand, schools focus on the ethnicity of Pasifika (Pacific Islander) students in terms of low…

Students in two Australian Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutes were surveyed (862 usable responses from 1,700 metropolitan students, 297 from 1,008 regional students). Focus group discussions were held with three metro and five regional students. A higher proportion of regional than metro students were volunteers or wanted to…

In this project a product to aid educational leaders in the process of communicating in crisis situations is presented. The product was created and received a formative evaluation using an educational research and development methodology. Ultimately, an administrative training course that utilized an Image Repair Situational Theory was developed.…

During the summer months, most of the students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) are at great risk of falling further behind in reading and mathematics due to lack of exposure to the spoken and written English language in their homes. The purpose of this study was to examine the short-term effects of a summer program on the literacy and…

This report describes the development of a World Wide Web site designed for business school faculty. During the project, the project team formulated and followed a user-based design process, which places the user centrally in all stages of the process: information-gathering, development, test and evaluation, and implementation. The technical…

Designed to guide and structure the needs assessment of Pennsylvania children with special health care needs, this document describes six specific steps in planning and conducting a needs assessment. The steps include: (1) stating the goals of the needs assessment, including fulfilling legislative mandates, identifying geographical areas that have…