This study discusses the development of a qualitative assessment to profile prosodic skills of Cantonese-speaking children with speech defects, and correlates it with a quantiative assessment of productive skills. The study entails the use of the Visi-pitch to provide objective data for assessment. The aim is to devise a comprehensive description…

This study used weekly conversations with 25 freshmen at Boise (Idaho) State University (BSU) and analyses of students' journal entries to examine reasons for BSU freshmen leaving school during or after their freshman year. The 13 students who were successful (reenrolled in the spring and following fall semesters and maintained satisfactory…

This paper presents the initial findings from an ethnographic case study, focusing on the mixed-method research strategy used in the MacArthur Comprehensive Child Development Project Follow-up Study. The aim of the study was to expand the understanding of children's developmental trajectories as they traverse the elementary school years.…

This paper summarizes responses of students in kindergarten and grades 1, 2, 4, and 5 to questions about Native Americans. The paper draws on findings from two studies, both done in a suburban school system deemed "average" on a variety of educational and socioeconomic indicators. In each study, samples of students stratified by gender…

Qualitative methods were used to study: (1) the effect of engaging in a mathematics teaching experience in an alternative high school program, the Transcend program, on preservice teachers' beliefs; and (2) the effects of a guided preservice teaching experience on at-risk learners' beliefs, self-concepts, and mathematical development. Five…

A cross-national study of learning environments in Taiwan and Australia is one example of research that employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. This paper describes the part of that study related to the development and validation of an instrument called the Teacher Student Interaction (TSI) which assess student perceptions of teacher…

This paper reports a study to address two questions concerning children's understanding of average: How do children construct and interpret representativeness within the context of data sets? and How do children think about the mean as a particular mathematical definition and relationship? Twenty-one students (seven each of 4th, 6th, and 8th…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) recently published two documents, "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics" (1989) and "Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics" (1991), (the "Standards Documents"), that recommend departure from conventional forms of instruction and…

A study was conducted to assist the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District in determining the reasons that students had for choosing to attend or that forced them to leave Grossmont College (GC) or Cuyamaca College (CC), in El Cajon, California. An open-ended questionnaire was developed to provide the college administration with the…

This qualitative study used questionnaires, interviews, and observations to assess what having children with disabilities means to three families. The disabilities include severe mental retardation and seizure disorder, Down syndrome, and neurofibromatosis. Interview data were categorized into the following five areas: the children,…

Action research is a way to examine purposes and practices in teaching. One way of conducting action research is to engage in participant observation, which may be seen as a systematic attempt to discover the knowledge that a group of people has learned and is using to organize the group's behavior. Participant observation has a great deal of…

The thought of shared leadership offers teachers a vision of more control of central issues of concern, opportunities for significant decision making, and the development of a more democratic environment. This paper presents an account of the success and frustrations encountered by an elementary school throughout an 18-month period of school-based…

This paper presents an example of "optimistic research," a qualitative approach which focuses on positive interventions helpful to practitioners, in this case an examination of programs successfully integrating people with severe disabilities. The study evaluated 40 programs through site visits which focus on observation, interviews, and…

The problem of teacher isolation and lack of collegial relationships has been extensively documented and considered one of the obstacles to improvement of instruction. The study reported here analyzed some empirical evidence about how that situation can change in junior high school science. The study investigated: (1) what happens when science…

This study considers the enrichment of social studies methods through the integration of videoconferencing in a telecollaborative format. The purpose in developing this study was threefold: (a) to describe the perspectives of teacher candidates while participating in a telecollaborative social studies methods course experience, (b) to determine in…