One of the most frequently used research methods in education and psychology involves repeated observations on the same individuals. When sample sizes are relatively small and a multivariate analysis lacks power, there are currently two analytical options in testing time effects. One is to assume a time series structure to these observations, and…

The study surveyed 134 institutions to determine if significant differences existed between public research and doctorate-granting universities concerning: (1) the most important external environmental areas to scan; and (2) the scanning activities that provide the most information for planning processes. A total of 105 responses (78%) was…

The encoding of Swedish syntactic information in a study of linguistic data processing is described in detail. The choice of syntactic variables and classification criteria, illustrated with examples, is also discussed. In addition, uses of the coding for contrasting languages, as in this study's comparison of Swedish, Finnish, and English word…

Two studies were conducted to compare the advance organizer and concept elaboration models of instruction with a task analysis approach. It was hypothesized that the concept elaboration group would achieve significantly higher than either the advance organizer group or the task analysis group on concept learning and principle learning. A pilot…

The study describes the use, popularity, and effectiveness of selected social studies curriculum project materials (CPMs). Five multistate surveys identified 11 CPMs which were judged to be widely used and therefore served as the basis for the study. These included materials from the High School Geography Project, Anthropology Curriculum Study…

Fifty-eight studies relating to the "knowledge gap" hypothesis (a theory that correlates public knowledge to educational level and mass media exposure) are examined in this report. In the opening sections, the theory is defined, and the early information diffusion studies and public opinion polls that led to its formulation in 1970 are…

This paper reviews methods which have been used to identify and validate learning hierarchies. Specifically, three methods which reflect the notion of a relatively inviolate sequence are discussed and compared. Two of the psychometric methods compare pairs of skills, the ordering-theoretic method (Bart and Krus) and the test of inclusion (White…

A reporting and study format for the investigation of university student retention is presented. Student progression and loss is shown graphically and in tabular form to enable ready comprehension and encourage data exploration. Data obtained at Virginia Commonwealth University for 1977-80 are used as illustration. Two ways of viewing student…

In a study of factors in the educational environment of the home, the school, and the peer group contributing to achievement and attitudes towards schooling at the upper primary and lower secondary school levels, an opportunity arose to examine the data available for configural and curvilinear relationships. Information was collected on 11…

The Follow Through experience is beginning to provide compelling evidence bearing upon important policy issues in compensatory education. This evidence, coming as it does from a naturalistic quasi-experiment, cannot draw its plausibility from the conventional statistical inference appropriate to probabilistically-constructed true experiments. The…

This study compared the efficacy of interactive video instruction with stand-alone video instruction and computer assisted instruction (CAI) on junior high school industrial arts students' performance and attitudes. CAI and interactive video users scored higher on performance posttest than stand-alone video users; interactive video users scored…

This is the 4th annual report from a 5-year longitudinal project that examines diverse and promising programs for integrating career and technical education (CTE, previously called vocational education) with whole-school reform in schools that serve predominantly disadvantaged students. Prior annual reports have reviewed the research base on the…

This summative evaluation of magnet programs employed a quasi-experimental design to investigate whether or not students enrolled in magnet programs gained any achievement advantage over students who were not enrolled in a magnet program. Researchers used Zero-One Linear Programming to draw multiple sets of matched samples from the non-magnet…

The Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS) program requires states to establish systems for identifying Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants likely to exhaust their UI benefits and refers them to reemployment services. An evaluation was conducted to assess the reliability of the impact estimates provided in the evaluation of the WPRS…

This annual report presents several articles related to the work of the Clinical Center for Child Development at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. The articles are: (1) "Intrinsic Musicality: Rhythm and Prosody in Infant-Directed Voices" (Niki Powers); (2) "Movable Cognitive Studies with a Portable, Telemetric Near-Infrared…