This paper synthesizes explorations from two research projects with 3- and 4-year-olds in the areas of instrumental music-making and telephone discourse, sharing an approach to research with young children in which the adult participates in the child's activity and seeks to share the initiative. The interpretive, participatory approaches used are…

Presenting a case study of the African nation of Burundi to illustrate the great variation in the environment in which children are raised in developing and developed nations, this paper focuses on the importance of considering the context of a particular culture and society when educators talk about the quality of early childhood services.…

Noting that a substantial research literature on fathers has been built over the last 20 years and that fathers can no longer be considered "the forgotten parent" of the scientific community, this paper summarizes key research on fathers while highlighting concerns regarding the current emphasis on fatherhood expressed by parents and…

Educational research, unfortunately, often focuses on finding statistical differences between overall means or averages. Media reports of research routinely present those differences and little else. This paper discusses the importance of considering the spread of the data in addition to the center and how this is relevant to research focused on…

To probe beyond declarative knowledge about real numbers in secondary school, the authors interviewed students in Grades 9, 10 and 12. The main question seems to be whether the length of a decimal expansion is "indefinite" or "infinite." It blurs the mental representation of rational numbers as well. (Contains 3 footnotes.) [For complete…

The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The SASS is a set of integrated self-administered surveys designed to obtain national information on all aspects of the school system. The Teacher Listing Form (TLF) is the first in the SASS series. It is sent to the…

This document provides the description, summary, and evaluation of methodological procedures and results for the field test of the 1995-96 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:96). Chapter 1 describes the background, purposes, and scheduled procedures of the NPSAS:96 and the unique purposes of the field test. The NPSAS is a…

Noting that the inclusion of young children with disabilities in early childhood programs has important short-term behavioral and social benefits for such children and their families and that arguments for an "ethic of inclusion" have emerged within the field, this paper maintains that much remains to be learned about the nature of early childhood…

This literature review discusses the need for rehabilitation organizations to become culturally competent and for rehabilitation research to reach and be utilized by minority populations. Sections address the incidence of disability in minority populations, the socially constructed nature of race, culture, and disability, cultural power and the…

This paper comments on the impact of computers on statistical analysis and presents a concise, nontechnical overview of five statistical methods now being applied in educational research. Appropriate uses of these techniques are pointed out, along with dangers concerning misapplications. (PP)

Reviews research focusing on teacher influence on student academic outcomes. Findings on both sides of the issue are discussed; reasons for the indeterminancy of findings are specified; and relationships between presage, context, process, and product classroom variables are discussed. (RH)

Professors of methodology and curriculum in teacher education are the most effective conduit to bring research findings to the practitioner. More involvement of methods teachers in research funded by the National Institute of Education, particularly in reading research, would have a greater effect on classroom research. (PP)

Some specific intellectual abilities show consistent sex differences which vary in degree according to types of tests and samples examined. Reviews the empirical support for these differences, as well as the methodological difficulties, data and sampling limitations, interpretative biases, and contradictory results of much of the sex-difference…

Constructed and administered self-report instruments measuring self-perceived social impact and social preference of male and female high school students (N=115). Teachers identified youths thought to fit categories of popular, amiable, isolated or rejected students. Concluded self-report and teacher nominations are unrelated assessments of…

Discusses the limitations of crossnational comparisons of secondary student performance in the U.S. and selected European and Pacific industrial countries, using mathematics and science data from the International Assessment for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Suggests the most serious problem is the rise of a new educational…