Reviews research on key student academic needs and presents them in a taxonomic model on how to focus on student development in academic advising. Addresses the different needs of each academic class and discusses potential delays to student progress through ineffective advising. Discusses coordination of institutional resources to promote student…

Research to determine if and how unbalanced racial and sexual representation in selected freshman classes affect subsequent dropout, stopout, and persister behavior is reported. Dropouts, stopouts, and persisters are defined. Racial minorities and sexual majorities both experience disproportionately higher dropout rates. (MLW)

A head teacher describes the activity of parents in a parent-staff group that considered such issues as a school sports day and the grouping of students into classes. The school policy group is credited with providing an opportunity for the development of parents' decision-making skills. (MJL)

Pupils in an open plan (as opposed to traditional) school were found to have more positive attitudes toward school and themselves and scored higher on some measures of productivity; on measures of curiosity there were no differences. (Editor)

It may be useful in evaluation research to employ the class as the unit of analysis, assessing its syntality by a vector of distribution cumulants or indices for each of several input tests administered. (Author)

Study results indicate that relationship between classroom structure and mental health reported by Glidewell et al. (1966) does not always exist in the nongraded classroom. Factors influencing classroom social structure include: (1) great chronological age difference within some level; (2) great variability of developmental level; and (3) changing…

Responses of pupils in 60 sixth-grade classes in Sweden to a 40-item questionnaire were factor analyzed at two levels of aggregation, classes and pupils-within-classes. Relations between personality variables and the attitude scales were also studied and implications for personality measurement drawn. (Author/SJL)

Analysis of variance was used in a study of 47 Irish high schools to discover--with respect to four standardized achievement tests and l3 public examinations--the percentage of variance lying between schools, between classes, and within classes. (Implications for research on school effectiveness are discussed). (CTM)

Two articles present suggestions for enhancing classroom management in creative ways. The first article describes how to use flexible seating arrangements to encourage cooperation, friendship, and community. The second article discusses how to encourage and work with classroom volunteers from the community. (SM)