Project STOP, a comprehensive conflict resolution program, was piloted in 15 middle schools in 1991-92. This report provides an overview of STOP's inception and results. The project incorporated three components to help schools deal more effectively with conflict: (1) student peer mediation; (2) classroom instruction in conflict resolution; and…

The PRODIGY/EBL system [Minton88] was one of the first works to directly attack the problem of strategy utility. The problem of finding effective strategies was reduced to the problem of finding effective rules. However, this paper illustrates limitations of the approach. There are two basic difficulties. The first arises from the fact that the…

Mediation in special education is a process intended to assist parents, schools, and agencies in resolving disagreements regarding the special education program of a student with disabilities. A trained mediator works with the parties to guide them toward a mutually satisfactory solution that meets the best interests of the student. This occurs at…

Program design can aid problem-solving or decision-making tasks faced by evaluators. It can be used to facilitate evaluation planning through the definition of program boundaries and the generation and focusing of evaluation questions. Further, it can provide evaluation information about theoretical, historical, and political contexts of a…

This book, intended as a text for therapists and counselors in family counseling, is based on principles of Adlerian psychology. The first chapter examines Adlerian theory and family counseling. Basic principles of individual psychology are applied to family counseling, and the goals of children with disturbing behavior are discussed. Reasons why…

This volume presents several distinctive but related empirical studies and opinion pieces about chief education officers (CEOs). The collection begins with (1) "Introduction: A Framework for Understanding School System Administration" (Kenneth Leithwood and Donald Musella). Section A, "Chief Education Officers' Practices and…

A psycholinguistic approach to listening was used in this study of listening skills in second language (L2) acquisition. The study tried to identify and classify the problem-solving processes and strategies used by L2 listeners. The processes were categorized from a perspective that took into account the processes underlying their use rather than…

A descriptive study was conducted to identify the problems met by university department chairs and describe the most common methods for dealing with them. The data were gathered by both qualitative and quantitative methods using a national survey of 808 department chairs (with a 70.2% response rate) as well as a series of semi-structured…

Teaching problem solving strategies and steps to first year college students enrolled in the pharmaceutical/chemical technology program as a part of their first year chemistry course focused on teaching the students the basic steps in problem solving and encouraging them to plan carefully and focus on the problem solving process rather than to…

The Extension Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture commissioned the National Impact Study of Leadership Development in Extension (NISLDE), one of five national impact studies, to examine the leadership development work of Cooperative Extension staff nationwide. The study, responded to by 86 percent of the 3,100 extension educators and…

With the current supply of fossil fuels slowly diminishing, the people of the 21st century will face a drastic change in their lives. If students become aware of the problem now, they will be able to participate in the technological and social innovations that the depletion of fossil fuel supplies will demand of society in the future. This unit…

Findings of a study that examined the relationship between variations in patterns of school leadership and group problem-solving process are presented in this paper. Interviews were conducted at the beginning and end of the school year with 12 principals in British Columbia who had implemented the Primary Program. The initiative was designed to…

This paper presents findings of a case study conducted at a middle school to understand how substantive change occurs in a school that has moved beyond the initial transition stage. The study was conducted during the 1991-92 school year at Cross Keys Middle School in Florissant, Missouri, which was changing from a traditional junior high school to…

A review of the critical thinking literature reveals that there is growing interest in developing instructional strategies to develop students' critical thinking skills and dispositions. This paper reviews the research literature regarding the nature of critical thinking in the following areas: (1) differences in the conceptualization of critical…

To explore and characterize the problem-solving processes of experts evaluating and revising text/illustration combinations, a study was conducted with experts from three different fields. Participants, who included five subject matter experts (SMEs) in biology, five professional designers, and five editors, were asked to diagnose and address…