While many school choice studies focus on individual parents' preferences, we simultaneously address the structural context within which families make decisions and the strategies they develop in response. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 Black middle-class parents of young children, we demonstrate that they sought well-funded, academically…

Developing digital materials for learning purposes, or e-learning materials, is not as straightforward as it may seem. The traditional approach is multimedia instruction, the presentation of both pictures and words in an e-learning format to foster learning. However, multimedia instruction, to develop meaningful learning, needs to support the…

While often positioned as a higher education challenge, hazing is prevalent in the secondary environment and is often linked to college hazing victimization and perpetration. This article reviews foundational studies of secondary education hazing, peer violence, and bullying, as these related activities are frequently linked in secondary education…

An exploratory case study approach was used to describe remote tutoring in biochemistry and general chemistry with students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH). Data collected for analysis were based on the observations of the participant tutor. The research questions guiding this study included (1) How is active learning accomplished in…

Stratification is a central issue in family research, yet relatively few studies highlight its impact on family processes. Drawing on in-depth interviews (N = 137) and observational data (N = 12), we extend Melvin Kohn's research on childrearing values by examining how parental commitments to self-direction and conformity are enacted in daily…

A series of policy shifts over the past decade promises to change how Americans decide where to send their children to school. In theory, the expanded use of standardized test scores and the boom in charter schools will allow parents to evaluate their assigned neighborhood school, or move in search of a better option. But what kind of data do…

A discussion of the problem of how it is possible for a verbal student to learn from a computer unless the machine can partially understand his language. (Author)

Frame-oriented computer-assisted instruction (CAI) systems dominate the field, but these mechanized programed texts utilize the computational power of the computer to a minimal degree and are difficult to modify. Newer, generative CAI systems which are supplied with a knowledge of subject matter can generate their own problems and solutions, can…

Design techniques for generative computer-assisted-instructional (CAI) systems are described in this report. These are systems capable of generating problems for students and of deriving and monitoring solutions; problem difficulty, instructional pace, and depth of monitoring are all individually tailored and parts of the solution algorithms can…

This final report summarizes research findings and presents a model for generative computer assisted instruction (CAI) with respect to its usefulness in the classroom environment. Methods used to individualize instruction, and the evolution of a procedure used to select a concept for presentation to a student with the generative CAI system are…

Compared foreign-born and native minority community college entrants in terms of credits earned, the likelihood of transfer to a 4-year program and the probability of degree completion. Results for 26,575 students in the 1990 cohort and descriptive statistics for 25,173 students from 1997 show that nativity, race, and ethnicity were all related to…

Teacher commitment has been found to be a critical predictor of teachers' work performance, absenteeism, retention, burnout and turnover, as well as having an important influence on students' motivation, achievement, attitudes towards learning and being at school (Firestone (1996). Educational Administration Quarterly, 32(2), 209-235; Graham…

With increasing divorce rates, many studies have addressed the effect of divorce upon the offspring of divorced and divorcing parents. Most of this research, however, deals exclusively with young children who still reside with a parent. This study examined how divorce affects older offspring, specifically those enrolled in college or graduate…

Focusing on parental networks--a central dimension of social capital--this article uses ethnographic data to examine social-class differences in the relations between families and schools. We detail the characteristics of networks across different classes and then explore the ways that networks come into play when parents are confronted by…

Five papers presented at a symposium during the 1991 annual conference of the National Council on Measurement in Education explore the design, development, and implementation of the Texas Master Teacher Examination (TMTE) Program. Educational policymakers have begun to maintain that the professionalization of teaching can be substantially…