The popularity of college ranking surveys published by "U.S. News and World Report" and other magazines is indisputable, but the methodologies used to measure the quality of higher education institutions have come under fire by scholars and college officials. Criticisms have focused on methodological flaws, such as failure to consider…

Many methods of student-conducted research exist. Within these methods, four stages are evident: Presearch, Search, Interpret, and Report. This topical bibliography and commentary delineates and discusses each of these specific stages in turn. The bibliography/commentary points out that students can best learn about conducting research by having…

The hypothesis is the device scientists use to translate questions, theories, or proposed explanations into a form amenable to empirical research. This edition of W. W. Charter's treatise on clear, conceptual definitions and precise operational hypotheses, which was originally developed to assist students in educational policy and management…

For student affairs, a professional field heretofore dominated by the positivistic design structure imposed by quantitative research methodology and traditional graduate research courses, an increased utilization of an alternative methodology, the qualitative, would lead to a greatly expanded range of researchable questions. The use of qualitative…

This digest investigates the methodological practice of relying on self-reported Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and grade point average (GPA) scores on educational-psychological research, explores the differential reliability of self-reported SAT and GPA values, and examines trends of deviation in a sample of midwestern teacher education…

This digest reviews the basic building blocks of a structured interview, points out some of the pitfalls in interviewing, and suggests ways for researchers to avoid these difficulties to produce questions that have the best possibility of generating reliable and accurate data on the topics of interest. The data collection instrument is a document…

Kinds of faculty workload data that can be obtained from college and faculty reports are examined, along with potential problems in workload studies. A main research concern is deciding which faculty activities should be considered as workload. Types of data that are sometimes used in colleges' faculty workload formulas concern student credit…

The conference proceedings volume for PME-NA-XIX contains a total of 72 reports: 34 research reports; 20 short oral reports; 11 poster session reports; and 7 discussion group reports. Only the research reports are full reports; the others are generally one-page abstracts. The full reports include: (1) "Equity, Teaching Practices, and Reform:…

This information bulletin provides an overview of some of the documents that were identified as a result of limited searches of the literature related to science education attitude research and highlights some of the problems and concerns involved in this research. Major areas considered include: (1) problems of defining scientific attitudes; (2)…

This study, part of the Colorado Science Meta-Analysis Project, was designed to assess the effectiveness of teacher education programs on preservice and inservice teachers having as measured outcomes one or more variables associated with inquiry teaching. Inquiry teaching within the context of the study addresses teacher behaviors facilitating…

Studies on the criterion validity of student evaluation-of-instruction instruments are analyzed, and recommendations are offered for future research into student evaluation of instruction. The main problem, and probably the reason for the lack of validity studies, is that it is difficult to agree on what the criteria of effective teaching should…

Summaries of environmental education (EE) research studies conducted during the 12-year period 1971-1982 are presented in this seven-chapter publication. These chapters are: (1) "Environmental Education Research, 1971-1982--Overview" (by Louis Iozzi); (2) "Environmental Education Research Related to Ecological Foundations" (by…

This digest discusses the use of benchmarking as a strategy for assessing and improving efficiency and productivity of administrative processes and instructional models in colleges and universities. Benchmarking, developed by the Xerox Corporation in the 1980s, is defined as an ongoing, systematic process for measuring and comparing the work…

This review and synthesis of dissertations and other research literature published between 1987 and 1993 focuses on K-12 and teacher education in technology education. It begins with an overview of the research base. The review examines the status of and curriculum development in secondary technology education and technology teacher education,…

The review of science education research for 1982 includes analyses of 455 studies reported in dissertation abstracts, journal articles, research papers, and papers presented at conferences. The organization of the review is topical. Topic areas include: (1) student characteristics and behavior (cognitive development, conceptual understanding,…