Briefly describes the characteristics of video games and discusses some advantages and disadvantages of their use to measure individual abilities. Relevant research is cited in the areas of stabilization with practice, predictive testing, performance testing, testing under extreme conditions, testing brain-injured persons, and differential…

New Zealand's 1989 Education Act has resulted in a range of educational reforms. These reforms have offered the Maori opportunities to bring about positive educational developments for their people. Devolution of educational responsibility from a regional to a local level provided some of the space quickly utilized by the Maori. The requirement…

Noting the need for research to support and inform early childhood classroom practices, this paper describes action research and presents examples of studies prepared by preservice teachers or by certified teachers pursuing master's degrees in education. Action research, aligned with regularly used assessment strategies, is a method whereby…

Strengths and weaknesses of three types of semiquantitative methods used by the federal government in research impact assessment are presented, and examples of their use are reviewed. These include the classic retrospective method, another retrospective approach, and accomplishments books used by selected research-sponsoring organizations. (SLD)

This article reviews the principal methods economists and cost benefit analysts use in evaluating research. Two common approaches are surplus measures (combinations of consumer and producer surpluses) and productivity measures. Technical difficulties and political and organizational constraints are discussed for these measures. (SLD)

Following a damning report on the state of police probationer training in England and Wales by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, entitled "Training Matters" (2002), the Home Office (2003), as part of its modernisation programme for the police service, decided that what police officers were required to know and learn to execute…

Inquiry-centered staff development requires that adult literacy practitioners (adult educators, tutors, and administrators) function simultaneously as learners, researchers, and reformers performing the following actions: forming research communities within program or across program sites; using literature and their own experiences to investigate…

This handbook brings together information on the who, what, where, when, why, and how of adult basic education (ABE) research in Australia. Chapter 1 describes the ABE Research Project that developed this handbook. It summarizes the rationale and context for the project, describes its aims and content, provides details of the information gathering…

Intended to help professionals remain knowledgeable about current research in reading and to serve as a relatively accessible bibliographic source of research on a specific topic, this annual report summarizes approximately 1,000 reports of reading research identified between July 1, 1984, and June 30, 1985. The summaries are arranged into six…

A detailed plan for stages one and two of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project is presented in this paper and factors considered in the project's research design are discussed in depth. The first section describes the working hypotheses of the project--that there are primordial patterns in the response to literature that are common…

The Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act of 1977 provided more than two hundred million dollars annually for a range of research, evaluation, and demonstration activities intended to increase understanding of the employment problems of youth and to help determine the most effective policies and programs to address these problems. The…

This report presents the rationale and design of a vocabulary program created as the instrument for research exploring the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. The first section of the report reviews the current state of the art of vocabulary instruction and discusses the techniques used in two commercial basal…

The purpose of this paper is to indicate priorities for qualitatively-based research in child care. Three main foci for research are indicated. Researchers should examine the multi-faceted cultural and social experiences of the children in programs, investigate the social system in which adults form formal and informal child care arrangements, and…

Presented is a student learning guide for high school students working independently on a self-paced research project in an environmental field. Students are introduced to environmental awareness and the environmental crisis, and are presented with a variety of techniques helpful in conducting a research project. Included are: choosing a problem,…

Addressing the growing interest in qualitative research methodology, the paper describes the process and results of a team evaluation of a college day-care center. The purpose of the study was twofold: to conduct research which would provide team members an opportunity to develop skills in qualitative research methods and to assess the child care…