A fictional Rhode Island community is used to describe the Local Planning and Assessment Process (LPAP), including technical assistance, and to discuss some of the drawbacks involved in planning and implementing program evaluation and development. The hypothetical situation is based on real experiences of several communities which have used LPAP.…

Teacher action research using both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection were used to examine impacts of using visual learning strategies on five preschool children (ages 3-5) with autism in a self-contained classroom. During the six weeks of the study, pictures representing nine learning areas and specific developmental…

Conditions influencing conduct and impact of state-level program evaluation are explored. A model is offered as a guide for assessing conduct and impact, and its use is demonstrated by a case study contrasting the approaches of two states examining an issue raised by the Federal Health Care Financing Agency. (SLD)

To develop a college-wide resolution process for dealing with student concerns, Burlington County College, in New Jersey, undertook a planning effort involving the faculty, student, staff, and administrator senates in the college's governance system. Rather than appoint an administrator to lead the project, a member of the staff senate was…

As part of a graduate research course, nine students formed a research team to carry out all aspects of a multimethod research study, including design, data collection and analysis, interpretation, and presentation of results in a final evaluation report to a local school corporation. Benefits and challenges were noted by both the instructor and…

Recent calls for collaborative efforts appear to be aimed at universities doing a better job at supporting school-improvement efforts. This paper describes outcomes of a project in which university faculty supported and trained local administrators and teachers at one school in the use of collaborative action research to improve teaching and…

The training of researchers in the educational technology field has continued in the traditional vein of the experimental paradigm. This document describes a workshop presented to balance that training and to prepare students to undertake research in a non-traditional way. The workshop aimed to acquaint students with non-causal naturalistic…

Providing an overview of the educational and fiscal accountability system for community colleges in the state of California, this paper discusses the development of the system and describes the role of the Chancellor's Office (CO) of the California Community Colleges in accountability. Following a review of state and federal programs that include…

The need to teach student teachers to be reflective in solving problems and planning teaching events has led to an interest in developing appropriate data collection procedures for interns learning to perform self-evaluations. A study of 15 undergraduate student teachers was conducted to determine the extent to which they could perform unaided…

Action research in the Cobb County (Georgia) school district is described. This research is being conducted in the district under three main approaches: (1) co-researcher projects addressing central level issues; (2) district-wide projects; and (3) school-focused action research, including minigrants to teachers. The first three…

A qualitative study of an intensive week-long adult-training course taught with integrated hypermedia was conducted to document course implementation and to formulate questions and hypotheses about aspects of learning with hypermedia to guide future researchers. The hypermedia training was that of the Cities in Schools (CIS) Program Operations…

The effects of prenotification, ink color, and return deadline on sincerity and rates of response to mailed questionnaires concerning desirable characteristics of teachers were investigated in Thailand. Questionnaires were mailed to 800 public secondary school teachers in Bangkok. Some teachers received prenotification of the survey by mail, while…

The Center for Educational Research and Evaluation of the University of North Carolina (Greensboro) has been contracted to propose standards, indicators of quality, data collection procedures, and instruments for the evaluation of Georgia public schools mandated by the state legislature. The development of these standards and indicators is…

While the need for improved literacy in the work force is generally accepted, questions still remain as to what levels of literacy are required for different jobs and who will provide the necessary adult literacy training. To answer these questions, researchers must develop a database of information about literacy needs and deficiences. Developing…

Nonresponse issues are investigated for the base year (1988) survey of the United States Department of Education's National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), a national probability sample of middle schools and eighth-grade students in the spring of 1988. The total eighth-grade enrollment for the NELS:88 sample of schools was 203,002;…