Compares and contrasts piecemeal and whole-theme approaches to learning and teaching, considering the implications of simplifying learning tasks through isolation. Concludes that a whole-theme approach can enable educators to rethink existing ways of going about learning and teaching, and can lead to organizing learning environments in a radically…

As part of the legal defense in an educational-disparity court case in Alabama, school resources and conditions and teacher and principal attitudes were studied in 45 school districts. Findings from all sources show disparities favoring wealthy schools on about 84% of the variables examined. Research impact on the trial is discussed. (SLD)

The relationship between invitational education and student self-concept-as-learner was studied with 175 students in the seventh grade and again in the ninth grade. Self-concept-as-learner scores did not decline over this two-year period as predicted on the basis of other studies for students who participated in invitational education, a set of…

This pilot study investigated self-esteem and achievement of 42 black male rural junior high school students identified as at-risk by their teachers. Self-esteem was significantly related to achievement test composite scores and science and mathematics subtests, as well as to average grade and English and social studies grades. (SLD)

Korean children (n=440) aged 2.5 to 12.5 years were tested with the Korean version of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) (A. Kaufman and N. Kaufman, 1983) to see if these children demonstrated a profile similar to that of Japanese children. Korean children scored higher on the Sequential Scale than Japanese children, and had a…

A total of 1,311 administrators, teachers, staff, and students from an elementary, a junior high, and two high school campuses in a large school district completed the Charles F. Kettering School Climate Profile. Primary and secondary principal components analysis suggested subscales different from those given for the Kettering instrument. (SLD)

Examines First Amendment rights of students and illustrates points of contention and conflict as educators try to cope with interpretations that seem to be diametrically opposed, as are those of the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District and the Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeir court cases. (SLD)

This qualitative inquiry examined the value of collecting and analyzing preservice teachers' pre- and postsemester metaphors about teaching by comparing the orientational content of the metaphors to preservice teachers' expressed beliefs and practices. Results show the usefulness of metaphors as a source of information about teachers' professional…

This research is an empirical study, through Monte Carlo simulation, of the effects of violations of the assumptions for the oneway fixed-effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Research reaffirms findings of previous studies that suggest that ANOVA and ANCOVA be avoided when group sizes are not equal. (SLD)

Effects of item parameters on ability estimation were investigated through Monte Carlo studies using the Expected-A-Posteriori estimation. Results show a significant effect of item discriminating parameter on standard error of ability estimation. As the discriminating parameter increases, the standard error decreases. (SLD)

Components of effective teaching considered most essential and most difficult for beginning teachers were studied by asking 52 principals, 108 teachers, 16 college teachers, 93 pre-intern teachers, and 292 intern teachers. Differences in opinions among the groups and ways teacher education can address them are discussed. (SLD)

Inter-relationships of student attitudes toward science, mathematics, language arts, and social studies and student attitudes toward each individual subject were studied with data from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (National Center for Education Statistics). There were significant relationships of student attitudes among the four…

The standardization samples for the American Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) (n=2,200) and the French WISC-R (n=1,066) were used to compare the intelligence of French and U.S. children. The American sample scored higher on verbal IQ, full scale IQ, and some subtests. Implications of results are discussed. (SLD)

Three proposed models were tested to explore the inter-relationships affecting student academic performance and nonacademic factors using structural equation modeling. Results with 147 undergraduates suggest that a Bio-Model and a Family Mediated Model serve to predict academic performance moderately well. (SLD)

Undergraduate psychology examinations from 48 schools were analyzed to determine the proportion of items at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy, item format, and test length. Analyses indicated significant relationships between item complexity and test length even when taking format into account. Use of higher items may be related to shorter tests,…