Prepared as a tribute to the late Professor Ronald R. Edmonds, this paper reviews the history and progress of school improvement based upon the effective schools research. Topics related to the scope and precision of effective schools research are discussed. A need for further research is claimed in the following areas: (1) noncognitive and higher…

This discussion of the transfer function of California's community colleges focuses on the problems of obtaining reliable information, research findings on factors affecting transfer success, and ways of accurately assessing transfer rates. After affirming the importance of the transfer function of community colleges, the paper examines flaws and…

This report presents the preliminary findings of the District/Secondary School Study. The study had two purposes: (1) to identify ways of managing urban high schools to produce excellence, and (2) to recommend policy-relevant guidance to existing school and district administrators. The study design focused on the testing of two specific theories…

This document contains 53 plenary and contributed papers presented at the eighth Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) meeting. Two plenary addresses focused on mathematics research in Australia and Japan, and problem solving and symbolism. Contributed papers were classified under 13 headings including: teaching and learning theory; cognition;…

Differential sex role socialization in Thailand was investigated, and the results were compared with trends observed in the literature based on samples from the United States. Two issues were of particular interest: socialization for aggression and severity of socialization. A sample of 1,896 Thai children, stratified according to sex, grade…

An investigation of the stability and replicability of aptitude, attitude, and achievement factors in second language acquisition used 31 groups of over 100 second language students each from five grade levels (7-11) and seven Canadian geographic areas of varying degrees of bilinguality. The groups were administered a series of related measures…

This project was part of the Portland High Impact Program and had as its goal a 60 percent reduction in burglary losses over a three-year period to be attained by installing centrally-monitored, silent, anti-intrusion devices in eleven schools. Comparison with eleven control schools indicates that the alarm system has demonstrated effectiveness in…

The effects of humorous test questions on test performance of high and low-anxious college students was investigated. It was hypothesized that humor should reduce the anxiety level of high-anxious subjects, and thus improve their performance, while having little effect on low-anxious subjects. Students were assigned to a low or high-anxious group…

This pamphlet includes several program transcripts on educational research from the National Public Radio series, Options in Education. Dr. Harold Hodgkinson, former Director of the National Institute of Education, and Noel Epstein, Education Editor of the Washington Post, discuss "The Quality of Media Reporting on Education" and whether…

The major objectives in the establishment of a clinic in a department of psychology are to provide a setting for clinical training and for clinical research. Five issues must be considered in order to evaluate a departmental clinic effectively. First, there should be prior specification of objectives and periodic restatement of goals that include…

This monograph is one in a series of semiannual reports on research related to reading in secondary schools. The six papers in the monograph deal with the following topics: (1) the effect of reading level on the retention of propositions by secondary school remedial reading students; (2) the ambiguity of the term "significance" in research, which…

Problems relating to cooperative efforts between universities and government are considered, and an approach used in the Kellogg Public Service Research Program at the University of California, Davis, is described. This program facilitates collaborative research on policy issues and also information dissemination between the university and public…

A social scientist's perception of subject matter is similar to an individual's perception of reality in that both are set within a cultural context composed of factors such as common sense and scientific fact. Variations in ways of thinking have particular ramifications for feminist scholarship. For example, understanding the importance of…

This paper examines research concerned with the definition, development, and effects of curriculum. Ten aspects of current curriculum scholarship are examined. The first three (the state of the field, the scope of the field, and the revolt against scientism and rationality) concern curriculum study as a whole. Despite the assessment that the field…

Participant evaluation research is described as a combination of three recent trends: action research conducted by teachers in their own classrooms, social action programs involving parent and community participation, and subjective epistemology which includes perceptions and contextual information within the accepted database. The planning phase…