The purpose of this article is to describe a capstone course in undergraduate student geographical research in which GIS and other geospatial tools were used to teach undergraduate students basic geographical principles. The course uses the "cooperative learning" pedagogical approach to address one of a number of client-supplied research projects,…

Computer software that is intended to assist the qualitative researcher in the analysis of textual data is relatively new. One such program, the Data Collector, is a HyperCard computer program designed for use on the Macintosh computer. A tool for organizing and analyzing textual data obtained from observations, interviews, surveys, and other…

The collection of observational data in natural settings and in real time requires equipment that is light and easily used, and programs that permit rapid and flexible encoding of data. This paper describes a set of four programs for collecting and analyzing continuous time sample, focal-individual data as described by J. Altmann (1974), using a…

A structured elicitation technique, convergent communication, was investigated as a means of constraining the range of linguistic data from children in K-3 without unduly constraining the naturalness of the conversation context. The convergent communication situation is a two-person problem-solving task which ensures that all communication is…

Describes RECOMP, a computer program developed at Louisiana State University which provides researchers with new ways of studying the composing process by analyzing and charting elements of the process as it occurs. Types of data gathered, RECOMP's place in current composition research and potential value of studies using RECOMP are also…

This paper defines the student case study approach to evaluation, discusses its strengths and weaknesses as a component in a program evaluation design, and lists the specific steps needed to accomplish it. Its use in the evaluation of Experience-Based Career Education is described. (SJL)

This paper discusses the nature of research and identifies some of the questions which it is important to address at the planning stage and to return to throughout the life of any research study. In a discussion of the nature of research, it is noted that research findings must be potentially generalizable. The criteria for identifying research…

Program Evaluation and Review Techniques (PERT) is a network composed of events and activities, and a viable tool in developing a program for institutional research. The model contains three segments: internal and external research activities, and a system of data collection and retrieval. (Author/AJ)

A survey was conducted to evaluate tracking procedures used in longitudinal studies. The study grew out of an effort to locate part of a group used in a 1947-57 longitudinal study. A subsample of 320 was chosen from the 2,344 respondents already located. The tracking methods studied were mail, long-distance telephone calls, community visits and…

Single subject (N=1) research strategies deserve increased emphasis in the training of school psychologists. Single subject methodology has demonstrated credibility in research and in monitoring effects of professional interventions. Presented at the 8th Annual Convention of the National Association of School Psychologists in Kansas City, Kansas,…

This example of online searching, employed as a research method rather than as a tool to gather bibliographic information, used Magazine Index to collect data which were manipulated using geographic codes and compared with the buildings of a 1977 study on geographic bias in television news reporting. (EM)

InSight, a series of 10 HyperCard stacks, provides optometry students with first-hand experience with a number of visual phenomena and a variety of experimental data acquisition and analysis techniques. Each stack contains background information on the experiment topic, instructions, references to the literature, and questions to be answered.…

"Pure" academic research rules on data collection do not apply directly to operations research (OR). OR data collection should be viewed in terms of objective, cost, and effectiveness. For the model formulation objective, proper data strategies emphasize multiple views of the operating system to identify the "relatednesses" to be depicted. For the…

Although scholars and policy analysts both value quality-controlled collections of research results, they evaluate research according to different criteria. Nevertheless, an examination of a pessimistic fictional research experience and a more productive actual experience indicate that, although differences in focus between scholars and policy…

The choice of methods is part of the overall evaluation design process. The process consists of the following steps: (1) analyzing the problem context; (2) asking a few general questions; (3) selecting the methods (strategies) to use; and (4) selecting the specific techniques (tactics) to use. To operate successfully the evaluator needs to know…