This paper uses a hypothetical application entitled "VAPORTRAILS" to examine how an integrated application can be used to solve the problems of search and retrieval from a range of qualitatively different databases, and the organization of the resulting information into a personal database resource. In addition, four general classes of databases…

Over 20 data bases available to social science educators are listed and described in this fact sheet. The data bases provide a wide variety of topics including American and world history, statistics, economics, philosophy, and social and political science. Educationally oriented data bases provide information on such topics as educational media,…

This paper reports on a study developed to determine what experts in the area of educational research perceive as the basic skills and knowledge areas that one who has successfully completed a one-semester graduate course in educational research should possess. A decision was made to conduct a Delphi study to identify these skills and knowledge…

This project is the sixth in a series of studies designed to validate the Training and Development Benefit Forecasting Method (BFM) sponsored by the Training and Development Research Center (TDRC) at the University of Minnesota. The purpose of this study was to validate the BFM's ability to forecast the benefits of an organization development…

A study was conducted to understand better a common problem in job development efforts in rehabilitation--the poor returns of mailed-out surveys and, therefore, identification of few job leads for further cultivation. Two experimental job development investigations were used, one with large firms and one with small firms, to examine the effect of…

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.…

Papers on international access to information pertaining to legal research, which were presented at the 1985 conference of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) include: (1) "Materials of European Intergovernmental Organizations and Their Accessibility through Available Research Tools" (Irene Berkey, Northwestern…

The vast bulk of psychosocial research data about the family are derived from two basic sources: self-report, retrospective data obtained by questionnaires or interviews; and direct observations of behavior occurring in a laboratory or treatment setting. Despite an emerging enthusiasm for the notion of studying behavior in its natural environment…

On the premise that the variety of problems plaguing education can be clustered around central themes conducive to attack in a systematic way by educational research and development (R & D) personnel, this paper deals with the scope of management problems, requirements of an R & D management model, and a proposed R & D management system, which…

One of a series of instructional booklets designed to introduce adult education program planners to the basic concepts integral to and alternative strategies for conducting needs assessments, this instructional booklet deals with determining where to find information for use in conducting needs assessments. Described first is the relationship of…

One of a series of instructional booklets designed to introduce adult education program planners to the basic concepts integral to and alternative strategies for conducting needs assessments, this instructional booklet deals with determining how to gather information for a needs assessment. Described first is the relationship of the process of…

Provided is an examination of the methodology used to study the problems of learning addition and subtraction skills used by developmental researchers. The report has sections on categories of theory and their methodologies, which review: (1) Behaviorist, Neo-Behaviorist and Piagetian Theories; (2) the Behaviorist and Piagetian Paradigms; (3)…

The college and university marketing system must be viewed as a separate but integrated area within the institution requiring its own planning and implementation cycle. The marketing concept as it applies to higher education means that a college or university exists to provide satisfaction to external and internal constituents (or segments…

The application of computer techniques to the making of concordances and indexes has brought about many innovations including the KWIC format and the exhaustive concordance. Although claims for the merits of these concordances are not always justified, the KWIC method offers the following advantages: (1) the detection of formulaic expressions and…

Attitudes and attitude measurement are critical components of teaching and learning and the instructional developer should collect as much relevant data about that process as possible. It is important for instructional developers to study the attitudes of learners in order to demonstrate attitude/achievement relationships, promote attitudinal…