As part of an exploratory study at three universities (two in the UK and one in the USA) of how first-year students in three disciplines (biology, electrical engineering and history) learn to argue, we conducted interviews (individual and group) with university faculty and students about the place of argument in their teaching and learning. Here…

Test questions designed to encourage students to carefully use a variety of library materials for research papers are presented. (HTH)

Based on Daniel Fader's philosophy that "pleasure and enthusiasm must be the first (and at times the only) goal of an English teacher," this paper discusses the use of best sellers and current literature in remedial and freshman English classes. Best sellers were used as the basis for class discussion and provided topics for themes in the remedial…

Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) scores and vocational choice were collected from 6,289 male freshmen at 31 colleges in the spring of 1964. The same data was collected from 12,345 male two-year college freshmen at 66 institutions in 1968. From the correlation matrix of the six VPI scale scores given in Holland, a principal components analysis…

The writing apprehension test yields valuable information about students as writers. (JH)

The purpose of this study was to use the case study method to diagnose and analyze disabled college readers and to determine their specific reading deficiencies. The subjects for this study were black male freshman volunteers, between the ages of 19 and 24, enrolled in a small, church related college in the Southwest. Negative environmental…

Describes a study that compared pretest to posttest differences among three groups of college freshmen: those who took a traditional library tour, those who had no formal library instruction, and those who used a computer assisted instruction (CAI) program. The results indicate that the CAI program was an effective alternative to traditional…

A freshman humanities course in reading and research was used by three English instructors to investigate the appropriateness of having students use an online database as a research tool. The results show that the acquisition of basic online database search skills is not qualitatively different from that of more traditional research skills.…

As a result of a survey and cost analysis, it was found that audiotaped tour programs are the most successful means for introducing college freshmen to library physical layout and basic finding tools. This is proof of the continuing feasibility of the audiotaped tour's role as a foundation of library instruction. (JMV)

This paper discusses the use of a semantic differential research tool to investigate the image of Tufts University in Massachusetts. Specifically explored are the following questions: (1) What are the differences between the institution's desired image and current image? (2) Do various constituencies view the institution differently, and if so,…

While the concepts and principles associated with learner autonomy underpin a broad range of CALL applications and research projects, current debates and research paradigms in CALL do not provide adequate tools and models to investigate in depth the relationship between CALL and the development of learner autonomy. This paper explores the…

This article documents the conception and development of a tool for providing academic and counseling support to meet the needs of minority adult students in an urban community college environment. Specifically, the tool is a course having as its base the proper assessment of student needs and the revision of the syllabus to fit those needs.…