The opinions of distance educators and practitioners around the world were surveyed regarding availability of research information, areas in which research efforts should be concentrated, and priority to be given to these research areas. The sample was randomly selected from registered members of the International Council for Distance Education.…

This book is about colleagues in colleges and universities who sometimes are unethical. It is about episodes that people in universities and colleges prefer not to talk about except in whispers, if at all--clashes over ethics and the dilemmas created by unethical colleagues in research and teaching. The book was written for those members of…

Dropout rates for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) are higher than those of other racial/ethnic groups, but the overall or national AI/AN dropout rate is not known. In an attempt to generate a national rate, data were collected from 26 state departments of education, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and tribally controlled schools;…

It is argued that the debate between qualitative and quantitative research for educational researchers is actually an argument between constructivism and positivism. Positivism has been the basis for most quantitative research in education. Two different things are actually meant when constructivism is discussed (constructivism and…

The Barnum Effect was generated to teach students about the ethics of deception in research and the feelings of subjects who are deceived. The Barnum Effect occurs when individuals are duped into believing invalid results of psychological tests. People are most accepting when given favorable feedback about themselves. They interpret evaluations as…

Children of families in the Showmen's Guild of Australasia have traveled throughout Australia for generations as their families followed show circuits. Educational provision for these children has varied enormously in the past. In 1992, the Queensland Department of Education assigned three teachers at the School of Distance Education (Brisbane) to…

This report discusses the findings of a study that attempted to investigate the participation rates of students with disabilities in the Oregon statewide testing program. The study joined individual student data from the Oregon Statewide Assessment Program and the Oregon Special Education Child Count to examine participation rates. The report…

The methods and findings of studies of the effects and value of preschool education and compensatory education programs, such as Head Start, are reviewed. After introductory comments on ideological controversies and on terminology, section 1 focuses on evaluative studies of the immediate and long-term effects of preschool education and early…

The purpose of this paper is to offer an alternative explanation of why the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, and educational research in general, has such a low status and its connection to education reform is so remote. Emphasis placed on the differences that divide reformers, researchers, and educators instead of similarities that…

This preliminary study investigated the perceptions of the research process of teachers who had newly become researchers and, in particular, it sought to explore the relationship between teacher-conducted research and professional growth. Six experienced English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers were…

Existing qualitative studies of school principals suffer from procedural or conceptual shortcomings that result in failure to clarify the principal's instructional role. This paper describes the methodology and procedures of a year-long, multimethod, multilevel field study of 12 school principals. First, the background for the study (the…

The Berkeley Reading Tests Project has selected as its principal object of study standardized tests of reading comprehension. The interest is in the assessment of such tests, with respect to their performance as measures of the reading comprehension abilities of school children. A serious study of the assessment of reading comprehension requires…

Ego development data were collected from two groups of subjects. One group consisted of 175 students from junior high, senior high, and college. The second group was comprised of 136 adults who were either teachers and administrators of a medium-sized public school system, or long-time employees of a large chemical manufacturing corporation.…

To investigate the coping skills and adaptational outcomes among elderly survivors of the holocaust and a comparison group of aged individuals who did not endure extreme stress requires overcoming several methodological challenges. First, stress must be defined to include the personal meaning or evaluation of the sources of stress and its…

The research literature on aging was reviewed to determine findings with direct implications for educational programs for older persons and findings with no direct application but that raise further research questions. The focus was on cognition and learning in later life, predominantly on work published during the past two decades in major…