The creation of a National Commission for the Social Studies offers an extraordinary opportunity to reconsider the mission of social studies education and move in new directions. Defining what the social studies field should be will help to answer the question of what should be taught. Questions of what children can learn in the elementary school…

Reported is a survey of the initial training of science teachers through the PGCE route. Areas of concern were the pattern of training offered, in terms of subjects being studied; important teaching skills; and general issues to be covered in the initial training. (SK)

The way that funding allocations are made to colleges and departments at Appalachian State University (ASU) (North Carolina) was examined. Funding patterns related to full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment and faculty allocation units (FAU) were addressed. An account is provided on attempts to gather information on how funds are distributed to…

South African pupils performed well below the TIMSS international average in 1995 and 1999 and significantly below all other countries (including the other African countries) in the 1999 study. Path analysis, namely Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis, was applied to the South African TIMSS-R data to explore the effect of contextual factors at…

In this study, the authors used expectancy theory to examine key factors that motivate business faculty to conduct research. The survey results, from 320 faculty members at 10 business schools, showed that faculty members who assign higher importance ratings to both the extrinsic and the intrinsic rewards of research exhibit higher research…

This report explores key issues in the debate about restructuring educational time to enhance student learning. Its central framework was derived from proceedings of a symposium conducted in June 1994 by the Policy Support Program of the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development. Part 1 describes the developments that led to the…

For millions of students, two-year college education represents the last real opportunity to develop an interest in science, mathematics, or engineering and to develop the prerequisite skills for a career in these fields. Yet, two-year college students represent a largely untapped pool of scientific personnel. Two-year college science and…

One important factor neglected in the literature involves an investigation into whether the increased utilization of part-time faculty impacts student retention. Are part-time faculty, who are employed primarily to teach introductory courses, having an adverse affect on student retention? Are universities recognizing and studying the potential…

A statewide system of reporting faculty workload for the 18 Maryland state community colleges is described, and study findings on faculty workload are presented. Data are collected for full-time teaching faculty who are tenured or on continuous contract. Major findings include: 89 percent of faculty workload is spent in formal classroom…

Leadership roles performed by teachers after implementation of a school-based management (SBM) plan in Florida are described in this report. Telephone interviews with principals of each of the 33 participating schools were conducted to identify the leaders of the participating school bodies, or "cadres." Findings indicate that 75 percent…

The Teacher Load Index, a simplified method of comparing the teaching load of individuals in the California junior and community colleges, is presented in this report. First, the load measurement problem is addressed, revealing the inadequacies of the Credit Unit and the Weekly Student Contact Hour systems for measuring teacher load. Then, a…

A glass ceiling for women still exists in academia after two decades of equal employment opportunity (EEO) legislation in Australia. There are complex factors that when combined make gender inequity in the higher education sector highly resistant to change. Using personal histories as a reflexive device, the paper makes explicit the embedded male…

The process used by one researcher in developing an inventory of specific tasks performed by language teachers is described. The objective was to facilitate research on language teachers' jobs in a variety of countries and under differing teaching conditions and to provide job profiles for use in teacher education and by teachers, their unions,…

The purpose of this article is to provide a new perspective on the intricacies of the work life in schools that motivate and satisfy teachers. The authors review the literature related to the improvement of school environments and the concept of "flow" as defined by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1990). He describes flow as a "state in which people are…

This article reports on a study of teachers in New South Wales (Australia) and their practices surrounding outcomes assessment and reporting, which took place in 2003 and 2004 as a follow-up to a major study in 1995. The study explored whether the main focus of a teacher's work involves planning, teaching, assessing, rewarding and sharing in their…