The implications for Soviet education of "glasnost,""perestroika," and the other interrelated concepts of Gorbachev's reform program are examined. The manner in which Gorbachev's concept of restructuring has shaped the efforts of schools to promote communist ethics, the human factor, and independent thinking is considered. (SLD)

Effects of a medical education program about diabetes mellitus were studied as a function of the extent to which participants' clinical environments were made to facilitate recommended practices. Subjects were 99 internal medicine residents and 15 internists staffing a general medicine clinic who attended a 3.5-hour diabetes seminar. (SLD)

Predictions from M. C. Wittrock's model of generative teaching about the effects of reader generation of summaries and analogies on the learning of 50 paragraphs of text were studied. Fifty-seven undergraduates--assigned to three treatment groups comprised of different generative tasks--had to use learning material from a text. (SLD)

Work redesign to facilitate teacher empowerment was studied in a year-long comparative case study in two junior-high schools implementing a career-ladder program. Journals of 6 teacher leaders (TLs), 23 teachers, and 3 teacher-specialists; TLs' and novice teachers' midyear surveys; and 61 classroom observations by TLs and principals were analyzed.…

Qualitative differences between 24 expert teachers and 24 novice teachers in think-aloud protocols related to solving classroom discipline problems were investigated. Results suggest that expert teachers have procedural plans for solving discipline problems and are able to put more attention into defining the problem than are novice teachers. (SLD)

Effects of class size on academic achievement were studied for 2 years using 6,572 kindergartners in Tennessee assigned to large classes (22 to 25 students) or small classes (13 to 17 students). Significant benefits of small class size were seen in reading and mathematics achievement, especially for minority students. (SLD)

A descriptive model is proposed to describe the path of adult problem solving and thinking that leads to reentry into college, retention, and eventual completion of a college degree. Intrinsic and extrinsic facilitators and inhibitors to degree completion, theories of motivation, and persistence are explored. (SLD)

Research on adult undergraduates in traditional American higher education is reviewed. A qualitative meta-analysis of 96 research reports indicates 5 domains of reality: image of implied deficiency; image of student entry and adaptation; image of description and characterization; image of psychosocial development; and image of equity and outcome.…

Analyses of the results of 23 reports on coaching for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) indicated that, on the average, coaching can help increase SAT scores. The considerable variability in the results of 48 studies reflected the many factors influencing coaching effectiveness and the wide variety of study designs. (SLD)

Alternative approaches to the evaluation of teacher cognition are compared in this review, which identifies five such approaches: direct, noninferential assessment of teacher beliefs; contextual analyses of teachers' descriptive language; taxonomies for assessing self-reflection and metacognition; multimethod evaluations of pedagogical content…

Best-evidence synthesis was used to review 29 research papers published in English that evaluate the effects of ability grouping on student achievement in secondary schools. Six randomized experiments, 9 matched experiments, and 14 correlational studies were reviewed. Findings do not indicate beneficial effects of ability grouping on achievement.…

This paper contends that weaknesses of the best-evidence synthesis conducted by R. E. Slavin concluding that ability grouping in secondary school has no effects on student achievement are ignoring instructional and curricular differences; relying almost solely on standardized test scores; and relying too heavily on experimental research. (SLD)

Criticisms by M. T. Hallinan concerning Slavin's work are considered. Unambiguous indicators of instructional quality in different ability groups are difficult to obtain, and student achievement, measured by standardized tests, is an adequate indicator. Slavin's research provides no evidence of student achievement advantage from ability grouping.…

Concept mapping, which requires learners to plot concepts and their interrelationships in a meaningful organizational network, was compared with an established curriculum approach. The usefulness of the technique is discussed in terms of its ability to individualize and raise the quality of learning. (JD)

Describes in detail the nature and degree of picture dependence in first grade basal texts and examines its effects on children's reading. The existence of picture dependence appears to be an unintended consequence of vocabulary-control constraints. It is argued that picture-dependent text does not assist reading acquisition and may hinder it. (JD)