The motivations of adult learners who were not admitted to college degree programs but who chose to take credit courses on a part-time basis were studied, with attention to the relationship of motivational orientations and sociodemographic variables (sex, race, age, and family income level). The study population of 464 part-time students 25 years…

To determine the influence of media on learning, a study explored students' preferences, perceived difficulty, and learning in relation to a variety of activities. A randomly selected panel of 611 students, grades three through ten, was drawn from the nine schools (six elementary, two junior high, and one senior high) that make up an entire public…

To investigate prospects for enrollment decline, institutional researchers from Michigan's 15 public universities participated in an enrollment project grounded in detailed examination of headcounts and credit hours over time. Each institution reported enrollment for 12 fall terms (1974 through 1985) categorized by age group, gender and degree…

Sixteen third grade students, 16 college students, and 16 older adults performed a lexical decision (word-nonword) task to determine age-related differences in the magnitude of contextual priming effects. Context length and target quality (intact versus degraded) were within subject manipulations. A significant Age X Context Length X…

In March 1959, Howard McClusky introduced his Power Load Margin (PLM) theory and proposed that it be used for studying the adult years and for developing and building realistic educational programs for adults. His formula, which states that the key components of adulthood are load (the demands made upon the individual by self and society) and…

This study investigated the role of knowledge base organization in elementary school students' memory performance. In a preliminary study, students in grades 2, 6, and 10 rated words from three semantic categories for their category representativeness. Results disclosed age-related changes in how children rate words for high and low typicality.…

In the twentieth century, both the need and the opportunities for acquiring a foreign language have greatly increased. However, even today, foreign language instruction has not been firmly established worldwide as an essential element of basic education. In Great Britain, enthusiasm for foreign language instruction has risen and fallen repeatedly.…

A study investigated the relationship between gender, age, and length of residence in the United States and codeswitching behavior, by looking at the attitudes of 133 Hispanic college students who are first-generation immigrants from a variety of countries. The subjects completed questionnaires concerning their English and Spanish language…

The estimation processes used by fifth through eighth grade students as they responded to computational estimation test items were examined. Interview-based process descriptions were cross-validated using large group test data from an open-ended test and a multiple choice test. Five question formats were used to test different estimation…

This paper describes a study of the classroom behavior patterns of 79 reflective and impulsive elementary school children in each of three contextual settings: individual setting (independent, unsupervised seat work); large group setting (15 or more students instructed by the teacher or another adult); and small group setting (similar to large…

Alumni attitudes concerning their college experience, present work, and present recreational activities were analyzed in relation to the time in college, using a semantic differential format. Four items were used for each type of rating, one evaluative, another activity-oriented, and two potency oriented. The evaluation dimension concerns the…

This study examines the relationship between several teacher attitudes and students' perceptions of the teaching milieu. To assess these relationships, measures of teachers' attitudes, teachers' perceptions of their own teaching and children's evaluations of the instruction were used. Five instruments were used to measure the attitudes of 42…

This study was designed to assess the relative importance of various factors influencing children's sex role orientations. A measure of sex role flexibility developed for this study and a self concept questionnaire were administered to 376 children in kindergarten and third grade. The children's parents were interviewed about sex role attitudes…

The hypothesized ability of adult native speakers to understand linguistic ambiguity was tested. An approach developed to determine linguistic competence tested the ability of 90 participants in individual interviews to interpret sentences having the potential for multiple interpretations. The hypothesis was not supported by the data. A hierarchy…

This study explores the effects of physical differences in the architectural design of schools by comparing behavioral and performance variables for two groups of pupils: (1) those who had previously attended an open space school, and (2) those who had always attended classes in a traditionally built school. Three major variables are examined:…