Provides advice for constructing an activity log directing students in writing a sociology term paper. Includes topic selection, outline, critical thinking, information gathering, analysis of findings, and completing a semifinal draft. Recommends that each step have a firm due date to reduce procrastination. Suggests that sequencing activities…

Presents results of a study of English children's ability to consider the relevance of planning with regard to both good and bad deeds. Shows evidence that children are more likely to consider a reward for planning when judging good than bad deeds, reflecting children's experience of adults' views of relevance of planning. (DK)

Explored the relationship between three personality traits in older adults and improvement in face-name recall after three types of intervention. Results showed improvement in recall after intervention; a correlation between the openness trait and recall with all interventions; and a correlation between the fantasy subfactor trait and recall with…

Examined perceived antecedents of sex and preferred partner qualities in African-American and White late adolescents. Found that African Americans mentioned "nice body" as criterion for partner attractiveness; Whites did not. Males identified sexual arousal as a reason for sex; females did not. African-American males associated sexual…

Suggests that people think about information as a process rather than a substance. Argues that in order to do this, schools need to slow down and do less, but do it better. Asserts that too much content coverage gets in the way of developing critical thinking skills. (NB)

There is no common agreement on the meaning of the word "understand". However, there is agreement on what students should be able to do with material they understand. Bloom et al. discuss kinds of tasks a student should be able to do, provided that the student understands. In a similar way, Biggs and Collis provide a taxonomy intended to evaluate…

This book shows how to use evaluation to find effective solutions. The first two chapters introduce evaluation as an administrative function at the school level. Chapter 1 draws on two kinds of literature--educational-administration literature (to survey administrative practices) and educational-evaluation literature (evaluation practiced by…

During the decade of the 1980s, rapid changes in the nature of medical practice and in patterns of health care delivery confronted medical educators with many challenges. At the Medical College of Wisconsin these challenges led to the design and implementation of the 2-year longitudinal experience called the Profession of Medicine Program (POMP)…

This paper describes a study which examined the similarities and differences in the reactions to a naturalistic account between an internal participant audience and an audience external to the evaluation context so that some notions about generalizability of such material could be developed. A second aim of the study was to examine the…

Past research indicates poor agreement about strategies people use to assess covariation between events. This research investigates method of assessment as one possible source of this low consensus. A set of problems was developed in such a way that different judgment rules would produce different decisions about the relationships between events.…

Four strategies used in judgment patterns were explored. Problem sets in which each solution strategy produces a unique solution pattern are depicted. Several experiments had been conducted using rules in this way with subjects from grade 4 through college. Problems were set in the context of concrete events which could be related, and subjects…

Measures assessing non sex-typed behavior continue to define that behavior in traditional sex role terms. A status/role distinction formulation of behavior provides a broader context in which to account for the characteristics and competencies of an individual under specific circumstances. Under the status assignment model, individuals with a…

The purpose of this document is to spell out clear objectives in reading, writing, listening, and speaking for all students in Boston, Massachusetts, elementary and middle schools. The objectives include all of the Massachusetts Basic Skills; these are directly linked to competency tests and teacher observation at each level to measure students'…

Although schools in many countries have initiated mass media education, American schools still give little consideration to any systematic study of the mass media. Students are particularly in need of learning how to apply basic critical viewing concepts to watching television, the most powerful and ubiquitous of the mass media. Most researchers…

This article reports a study of decision-making processes for selecting instructional materials. The project had two aims: (1) to survey research findings and practices of decision-making processes in instructional material selection in the United States and Australia; and (2) to identify the attributes of decision-making processes used to select…