The Social Studies Field Agent Training Program was a two year experiment supported by the Office of Education and the Ford Foundation. The primary goal of the program was to test the feasibility of employing specially trained social studies teachers, who were referred to as social studies field agents, to increase the rate of the diffusion of…

This document reports the origins and development of the DISTAR system of instruction. DISTAR is a set of programed instructional materials for teaching reading, language, and arithmetic basic concepts and skills that children need for success in school. The report describes (1) the key ideas of the personnel involved in creating the system, (2)…

THIS STUDY ANALYZED THE GENERAL BEHAVIOR OF ORCHARDISTS IN THE OKANAGAN VALLEY, BRITISH COLUMBIA, AND THE FACTORS RELATED TO ADOPTION OF INNOVATIONS IN THIS SETTING. FIVE PERCENT SAMPLES WERE DRAWN FROM 19 DISTRICTS CONSISTING OF 2,721 ORCHARDS, AND DATA WERE GATHERED BY RESIDENT AGRICULTURISTS. THE DATA WERE ANALYZED BY STAGE IN THE ADOPTION…

This handbook is concerned with one specialized form of participation: participatory planning. It is based on several years of experience in participatory planning and is infused with the bias that sees a great deal of potential good in expanded participation in general and in participatory planning in particular. It is also recognized that…

Attention of research and evaluation specialists has often focused on methodology for assessing program outcomes with less attention given to techniques for describing important characteristics of a program or methods for assessing the degree to which a program may faithfully reflect a particular model. The purposes of this paper are to describe a…

Examines the Cherokees' deliberate adoption of the laws of the white man, focusing on the blood feud--a retaliation system designed to deal with homicide. Discusses cultural bases of Cherokee law and factors influencing the change to a jury system and noted key events of the adoption period (1797 to 1840). (JHZ)

Describes various computer conferencing systems and discusses their effectiveness in terms of user acceptance and reactions to the technology. The methodology and findings of an experiment in which graduate students conducted a computer conference using a local area network and produced an electronic journal of the conference proceedings are…

In August 1985, almost 300 scientists and science educators came together in Bangalore, India, from over 70 different countries, including both developed and developing nations, to take part in a conference on science and technology, education, and future human needs. The conference is described. (RM)

This article examines research on the teaching process and suggests actions to be taken by researchers and teacher educators to make research more relevant for classroom teachers. (JMK)

This issue of CPRE Policy Briefs looks at findings from the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE) study of how central office and school staff in three urban districts made decisions about instructional improvement strategies, and how much weight they gave to evidence. The three districts, in three different states, had enrollments…

The National Staff Development Committee of the Vocational Education and Training Sector in Australia is promoting action learning as a preferred professional development strategy to support the implementation of key competencies. Action learning was piloted across five training areas within the Department of Employment, Training, and Further…

Recently, there has been a large amount of research in the area of self-access language learning (SALL) showing that students around the world react favorably to SALL (Gardner and Miller, 1997; McDonough and Shaw, 1993; Richtcrich and Chanceril, 1980; Sheerin 1989; 1991). There have even been a few reports showing positive results with students in…

Reports follow-up of teacher institutes conducted at Oklahoma State University (OSU) in 1965 and 1966. Based on doctoral dissertation, "Variables Influencing Teacher Adoption of Cooperative Agricultural Occupations Curricula, completed at OSU in 1968. More complete reports appear as ED 023 867 and ED 023 922 (RIE, March 1969). (DM)

One of the keys to successfully identifying innovation configurations is to develop a clear understanding and description of innovation components. The first step requires the identification of operational components. Secondly, it is important to observe the innovation in use and to interview users. The final steps involve constructing a checklist…

Reviews experiments in Kenya and Nigeria attempting to modify the progressive-farmer strategy. Success requires that extension services recognize small farmers' ability to make their own rational decisions and involve farmers in planning and implementing extension programs. Available from: Rural Sociological Society, 325 Morgan Hall, University of…