Critical friendship is a versatile form of external support for school colleagues engaged in leadership activities, and one that is subject to increasing professional and political interest. This article focuses upon the contribution of critical friends supporting leadership and school improvement in a range of contexts, including an international…

As part of the British Schools Council policy in sponsoring national curriculum development projects, this working paper has been prepared for those teachers, local education authorities, and professional English specialists who take special interest in the welfare of immigrant communities. This paper is in the following format: (1) a description…

Discusses research into chemical information and document retrieval systems at the University of Sheffield. Highlights include the use of cluster analysis methods for document retrieval and drug design, representation and searching of files of generic chemical structures, and the application of parallel computer hardware to information retrieval.…

Describes a large-scale project that was undertaken by a group of advanced students of English as a second language in England as part of their language course. The project involved research into the problems of the disabled tourist and the collection of information about facilities available to the disabled in the city of Bath. (Author/MES)

Discusses PRESTIGE, the project funded by the European Commission within its Training and Mobility Researchers program, describing the research design of the Oxford part of the project. Describes a comparative study of the implementation of the 'European Dimension' in education in England, Scotland, and Wales. Considers the methodological and…

Choosing a course of study for their fourth and fifth years of secondary education is a major decision facing pupils at 13 years of age (and over), and is one which may have far-reaching consequences. Helping students at this time presents schools with a major challenge, and the importance of educational and vocational guidance is becoming…

Provides a descriptive overview of the design, revision, and execution of a research project undertaken at the Department of Library and Information Studies at the Manchester Polytechnic to evaluate the attitudes of library science students toward computers before and after the completion of a course in library automation. (JL)

Discusses projects of the Graphic Information Research Unit at the Royal College of Art (England), which relates to the legibility of scientific and technical information. Summarizes the Unit's survey of problems in providing adequate guiding in libraries and museums, and reports two studies of Computer Output Microfilm library catalogues. (GT)

Relatively few studies have attempted to understand the beliefs young pupils have about the mind and learning. This collaborative action research study set out to explore the impact of a thinking skills pedagogy upon a sample of primary school children's learning and beliefs about learning over a period of 18 months. It was found that young…

This handbook describes research projects of the School of Education, University of Bristol. Eight current projects are briefly described, and references are listed for each. These projects include (1) a pilot project working with probationary teachers, (2) a study of teachers' support agencies, (3) a longitudinal study of language development in…

Ratings for degree of interest in hobbies, TV programs, reading topics and sports, together with the leisure activities they encouraged in their children, were obtained from 1270 adults. A list of 10 relatively independent factors, with a fair degree of similarity across sex, were arrived at by principal component methods. (Author)

This paper concentrates upon some of the major issues which affect research and development in teacher education and attempts to suggest how these factors may influence future work in this complex field. (Part of a theme issue on the future of teacher education in England.) (Author/SJL)

This paper reports findings from fieldwork in situations that brought young children and child welfare practitioners together with the aim of diagnosing and treating children's communication difficulties. The findings suggest that communication difficulties tend to be treated as a property of the individual child rather than as an emergent,…

A study in England and Australia suggests that in science and engineering, where researchers within a research unit of any size re-form themselves into smaller groups (5-12), communication is efficient and productivity optimal, with little economy of scale for larger groups. In less tightly-organized disciplines such as mathematics and social…

A report on the University of London's Institute of Education is presented for 1981-1986. After describing the general character of the Institute and constitutional matter, different areas of its work are covered. These areas are characterized in two parts as professional education (both initial and inservice education) and the academic study of…