This case study explored why, after 25 years of international, political, and financial attention focused on Education for All, inequitable educational opportunity persisted in some developing regions of the world. INGOs [international nongovernmental organizations] offer some perspective in understanding systemic hindrances preventing global…

People inspired by rational-choice theory are advocating choice policies. Their recommendations are based on implicit assumptions about how school leaders would respond to a choice system. This survey research study investigated the demographic characteristics of open and closed districts during Ohio's first year of full interdistrict open…

Drinking behavior, from abstinence to alcoholism, has been explored from a wide range of intellectual positions, academic disciplines, and ideological stances. The Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs) movement is probably the most rapidly expanding enterprise in the alcoholism arena. Social movement theory seeks to describe, explain, and…

An emphasis on logic is the basis of argumentation theory and practice, both past and present; the policy systems model of debate--which is based on the assumption that argumentation is a means for injecting rationality into choice--sharpens and clarifies traditional ideas and suggests significant new approaches, while retaining existing…

The budget decision making process at Stanford University, California, from 1970 through 1979 was evaluated in relation to the allocation of general funds to 38 academic departments. Using Simon's theory of bounded rationality and an organizational level of analysis, the Stanford decision process was tested for its rationality through…

This paper presents two types of approaches to media selection--rational-choice approaches and social-influence approaches. It is argued that designers should combine the two types of approaches in a bottom-up/top-down media-selection process. As examples of the two types of approaches, two conceptual frameworks are described--task/media fit and…

Theories or explanations of educational evaluation are discussed and categorized under two broad methodological headings, the objectivist and subjectivist epistemological orientations. They can be seen as potentially complementary empirical approaches that offer evaluators two methodological orientations to assess educational-reform outcomes.…

Using game theory as a model, suggestions are made to improve tenured public school teachers' individualized professional improvement plans. Seven basic concepts are discussed: (1) the game concept, a situation which involves decision making by the participants; (2) strategy--a plan for behavior under varied circumstances; (3) payoff--the value of…

This paper reviews the main research in the area of human reasoning and rational thinking to determine if man is either an "innately inefficient thinking machine" or if man's irrationality is "rooted in basic human nature," as Ellis (1976) suggests. The paper focuses on the work of two English theorists, Wason and…

Empirical hypotheses about organizational change are compared with actual case studies of change and leadership at the University of California (UC) system. The hypotheses are based on the sociological literature on complex organizations and are derived from three perspectives: (1) rational choice and analytic approaches, (2) cognitive…

The explanatory cornerstone of most currently viable social theories is a strict cost-gain assumption. The clearest formal explication of this view is contained in subjective expected utility models (SEU), in which individuals are assumed to scale their subjective likelihood estimates of decisional consequences and the personalistic worth or…

Recognizing that each student is different in terms of communication apprehension and needed skills, the confidence model attempts to provide instruction in anxiety reduction and skill development, combining the features of both the behavior therapy and the rhetoritherapy theories of communication apprehension. The rational emotive therapy used in…

Basic to Tiedeman's approach to career development and decision making is the assumption that one is responsible for one's own behavior because one has the capacity for choice and lives in a world which is not deterministic. Tiedeman, a cognitive-developmental theorist, views continuity of development as internal or psychological while…

The first step in a multi-stage approach to assessment of the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Art at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, this study assessed the department's introductory course. Data came from cognitive pre/post tests, self reports, and peer evaluations. Results indicated that: (1) students scored higher on…

This paper, part of a larger study on the emergence of the Joint Big Decisions Committee (JBDC) in higher education management practices, focuses on how the JBDC has functioned in light of existing organizational governance models. The paper begins with a literature review which presents and discusses various management model types. These model…