In critiquing the Sandia Report, Lawrence Stedman faulted it and other revisionist reports for emphasizing trend data rather than quality and not acknowledging educational requirements within a democratic society. The article addresses the issues, presenting evidence from additional studies to argue that none of Stedman's general contentions…

This study examined whether students could learn counterintuitive science concepts by reading and discussing ideas. Ninth graders read texts, answered questions, then completed control activities or engaged in scaffolded discussions. Students who read expository text and students who participated in scaffolded discussion performed better than…

An elementary school staff development program was designed to reduce disparity in educational achievement across race and sex. Researchers compared achievement test scores, attitudes, perceptions of teacher practices, and grade retention for students of teachers who did and did not complete the program. Results showed the program had few positive…

This study investigated student teachers' perceptions about discipline problems they encountered during student teaching and examined strategies they used to handle the problems. Subjects submitted written narratives describing effectively and ineffectively managed incidents involving discipline problems. Results indicated the subjects defined and…

This study investigated the effects of autobiographical writing before reading on ninth graders' discussion and understanding of two short stories. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of audiotaped class discussion revealed that students who had written about relevant personal experience before reading were more substantively engaged in…

Students in 11 university courses rated their instructors at the end of each class period of a semester. The primary dimensions of change in student evaluations of teachers over a period of time include: Interesting/Informative; Personal Concern; Rapid, Lively Presentation; Comprehensibility; Enthusiasm; Competence; and Responsiveness. (Author/JN)

Teacher personal control was investigated by comparing the responses of teacher trainees with those of practicing teachers. The responses of teachers with more than five years experience indicated a significantly higher sense of personal control than either teacher trainees or teachers with less than five years experience. (Author/JN)

Signal detection theory as a framework for interpreting concept acquisition was studied in three experiments involving preschool children. Results of the studies suggest that juxtaposition of minimally different examples is superior to exclusively positive sequences, and consistent instructions are superior to varied instructions. (Author/JN)

Postelementary reading instruction is offered in many specialized developmental and remedial courses, but there is some awareness of reading needs in content areas and of the need for those teachers to accept responsibility. A review of the literature examines whether postelementary teachers teach reading as an integral part of their content area…

Poor comprehenders from grades five and six were asked to read and rate the comprehensibility of three short passages. Passages with large numbers of modifying words were considered the least comprehensible. Support exists for the hypothesis that poor comprehenders process print in piecemeal fashion. (Author/JN)

Three tests were conducted to contrast the ability of bilingual and monolingual children to label and relabel objects. The findings show that bilingual subjects were significantly better than monolingual subjects, supporting the view that preschool bilingual education stimulates children's cognitive development, and enhances their self-concept.…

A study was conducted to assess high school students' knowledge in the area of consumer economics and to identify school variables related to that knowledge. Six hundred fifty-three seniors from five high schools were administered the "Consumer Economics Content Area Measure." (Author/JN)

Nineteen first grade children were randomly assigned to two experimental reading instruction conditions lasting 12 weeks. Both conditions used the language experience approach to teaching beginning language. In the experimental stage, the language experience approach was augmented by a total of six hours of individualized word-bank activities.…

College students were assigned to either take their own personal notes or to use full or partial notes that were distributed in class. The use of personal or partial notes resulted in higher scores on the essay test, and students preferring personal notes scored higher on the multiple-choice exam. (Author/JN)

A comparison was made between the accuracy of handwriting on large-spaced paper and normal-spaced paper of urban and suburban students. Results indicated that, with large-spaced paper, suburban students produced more accurate strokes than urban students, but when normal-spaced paper was used, there were no signficant differences. (Author/JN)