A prospective study investigating pragmatic transfer in the learning of Japanese as a third language (L3) is described. The study will test the hypothesis that the learner's perception of linguistic and cultural distance between the first/second languages (L1/L2) and L3 will determine conscious and unconscious decisions about which linguistic and…

This report documents the design and data analysis procedures of the Trial State Assessment Program of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Today the NAEP is the only survey using advanced plausible values methodology that uses a multiple imputation procedure in a psychometric context. The 1990 Trial State Assessment collected…

The progress of a novice ethnographic researcher is traced from problems associated with a pilot study through the production of a final draft of her dissertation--an observational case study. Focus is on the data analysis process, the development of conceptual maps leading to an emergent grounded theory, and writing the dissertation. Research…

This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data file for the School Readiness (SR) component of the 1993 National Household Education Survey (NHES:93). The NHES:93 was a random digit dial telephone survey of households developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat Inc. For…

The study described in this paper is built on previous research, and applies, tests, and develops an analytic framework to examine teachers' thinking about teaching and learning across subject areas--specifically, contrasts between approaches to mathematics and environmental studies or science. The Teachers' Thinking about Teaching and Learning…

This paper presents a review of research projects recently completed by teachers in South Africa. The purpose is to describe the nature of these projects and to see what trends emerge from an analysis of the location, purpose, design, methodology, and findings of the projects. Five different projects in which more than 70 teachers have been…

Good performance criteria can and must help define educational goals and serve as an instructional tool in the classroom. The rationale for considering instructional usefulness when designing performance criteria begins with the proposition that clearly stated performance criteria are excellent instructional tools. It is also apparent that…

Education researchers have long been concerned with finding the appropriate method for correlational analysis of hierarchical data. In recent years, the alternative of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) has come into extensive use. HLM users typically center some or all student-level predictors either at the grand mean or at the school means. This…

The nine-volume Survey Kit is designed to help readers prepare and conduct surveys and become better users of survey results. All the books in the series contain instructional objectives, exercises and answers, examples of surveys in use, illustrations of survey questions, guidelines for action, checklists of "dos and don'ts," and…

The Delphi process provides a technique for scientific inquiry within the context of group interactions by generating information and seeking a consensus through a series of interactive probes. In a study of the effects of power on the allocation of resources in the organizational setting of public elementary schools, the Delphi technique was used…

This book, consisting of a series of discussion papers and case studies, is a compilation of the papers presented at a region 1 workshop on participatory research in Africa. Included in the volume are the following discussion papers: "The Concept of Development in the Social Sciences," by Kemal Mustafa and Deborah Bryceson; "The…

Over the past 25 years, five large-scale research studies of community college students have been conducted in North Carolina, involving cooperation between Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the North Carolina Department of Community Colleges. The different research strategies employed in these studies can be seen as taking one…

This pamphlet provides suggestions for students concerning how to best use and interpret educational research. Students should recognize that there is nothing wrong with questioning research. Among the myths that must be challenged are that if something is published, it must be true, and that scientists are objective and uninfluenced by societal…

Intended for researchers and students in mass media theory, this paper examines the development of the concept of meaning in media studies. It considers the epistemological and sociological roots of the concept, arguing that such an analysis is pivotal in understanding the differences in current research perspectives. The notion of meaning in…

The design and evaluation of a rating scale for program evaluation in problem-based medical curricula are described. The design process was guided by a theory of how students learn in problem-based learning as modeled by W. H. Gijselaers and H. G. Schmidt (1988). The rating scale was used in an evaluation of a new problem-based, community-oriented…