Examined and measured effects of individual differences among the elderly in a cognitive training program emphasizing general learning skills. Memory improvement was greater for learning skill training and social support compared with a waiting list group. Individual variability obscured statistical differences in treatment effect. Examined…

Summarizes past and present television and aging research, identifies several methodological concerns or problems of this research, and considers future directions for mass communication and aging investigations. Television portrayals of the elderly, television viewing behaviors, and the role of television are among the research areas discussed.…

Outlines an alternative research method to capture the dynamics of local situations and accompanying interactions by describing sense-making in classrooms and the community and defining ethnomethodology and interpretation followed by a discussion of a case study and its usefulness to Indian education research. (ERB)

Focuses on small groups in work organizations, sources of stress, and available social support systems in five articles. Includes a methodological paper on measuring social support in work groups. Analyzes the complexity of coping strategies, and the relationship of occupational and life stressors to each other and the family. (KMF)

Suggests that many of the forces which are resulting in declining enrollments in history courses originate outside the discipline and will not be affected much by remedies attempted by historians. The essay also argues that traditional historical practice will survive the current crisis if its unique identity, values, and functions are reaffirmed.…

Research papers (N=111) published in Vols. 11-13 of "Journal of Research in Science Teaching" were used in this study to validate areas of productivity in science educational research. Questions were answered regarding research area interests, stability of priorities for research, and omissions of research in high-priority areas. (CS)

The pros and cons of laboratory vs. field-based research are debated, and a university-based model program for research at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro into mainstreaming in physical education is described. (JN)

Outlines the pros and cons of Project JOLT, a "Scared Straight" type of program. Raises some theoretical, methodological, and political issues surrounding the Scared Straight approach. Illustrates some of the pitfalls in program evaluation in corrections and makes some recommendations. (Author/RC)

Examines why social science/social studies educational research does not generate theories. The author concludes that the subject matter of this kind of research--human beings in their sociocultural milieu--makes it difficult to make objective observations from which theoretical principles can be derived. (AM)

The shortcomings of the three main approaches to measuring teacher effectiveness (systematic observation, participant observation, and questionnaires) are discussed and problems of research design and analysis considered. The development of better measures of educational benefits to complement the emphasis on test scores is suggested. (Author/SK)

Contains nine papers read at the National Cataloguing Conference for 1981 of the section entitled, "Subject Retrieval in the 1980s." Topics include cost of subject access, research problems, options for automated subject access, and authority control. (Library Association of Australia, The Science Center, 35 Clarence St., Sydney, NSW…

Reviewed studies that used methods of brief lateral visual presentation of linguistic stimuli to investigate asymmetry of organization in the cerebral hemispheric functions of both normal and poor readers. Most studies failed to demonstrate that both groups approach the given tasks in the same way. (Author/DB)

Observation data from 46 classrooms demonstrated the importance of context in understanding teacher behavior. Student-teacher interactions for explaining and giving directions occurred a statistically different number of times in self-paced and other-paced (group or interactive) settings. (Author/GDC)

A model is described which illustrates two general uses of multiple analyses to evaluate quasi-experiments: obtaining estimates of the treatment effect, and checking the validity of the experiment. (MH)

Until recently, norms of experimental reasoning have lacked systematic theoretical development. Thus, it has been easy for psychologists like Tversky and Kahneman to misclassify certain human reasoning processes as being Pascalian and invalid, rather than as being Baconian and valid. (CP)