Showing papers in "Review of Educational Research in 1970"

Attitudes Toward Mathematics

Abstract: In her \"Review of Research of Psychological Prob­ lems in Mathematics Education\" Feierabend (1960) devoted about ten pages to research on attitudes toward mathematics. During the past decade a number of published reports of conference proceedings have been con­ cerned with mathematics learning (e.g., Hooten, 1967; Morrisett & Vinsonhaler, 1965), but these reports do not treat research on attitudes in detail. Because the number of dissertations and published articles dealing with attitudes toward mathematics has increased geometrically since Feierabend's (1960) report, it is time for a reappraisal of the topic.

The Use of Questions in Teaching

Abstract: This study surveys the use of questions in the classroom over a fifty-year period. It reveals that the main trend has been the development of techniques to describe questions used by teachers. The present state of research knowledge deals with the incidence of teachers' questions, the relative frequencies with which various types of questions are asked, and taxonomies describing questions which teachers ask. Suggested contributions which can be made by researchers interested in improving the quality of classroom teaching include development of taxonomies based on the types of questions which should be asked; identification of desired changes in student behavior; determination of whether new questioning strategies have the impact on student behavior which is claimed for them; implementation of effective teacher-training programs in the strategy and use of questioning techniques; and the fostering of inservice training programs in questioning skills. (See related document CS 000 186.) (Several pages may be light.) (Author/TO) TEACHER EDUCATION DIVISION U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIG INATING II POINTS OF VIEW OR OPIN IONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDU CATION POSITION OR POLICY PUBLICATION SERIES FILMED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY THE USE OF QUESTIONS IN TEACHING

The Concept of Mathemagenic Activities

Abstract: Psychologists write from time to time in human language. Some years ago, I submitted the report of an experiment about mathemagenic behavior to a journal. The article started with the sentence, "You can lead a horse to water but the only water that gets into his stomach is what he drinks." The editor, probably judging this to be too alimentary, deleted the sentence. I regretted this not only because the little phrase pleased me but also because the problem of the not-drinking horse was and is a useful metaphor for explaining why the study of mathemagenic activities is a challenging enterprise for the educational psychologist.

Experimental Factors Related to Aptitude-Treatment Interactions

Abstract: Bloom (1968), Cronbach (1957, 1967), Gagne (1967), Glaser (1967), Jensen (1967, 1968) and other educational psychologists have suggested that no single instructional process provides optimal learning for all students. Given a common set of objectives, some students will be more successful with one instructional program and other students will be more successful with an alternative instructional program. Consequently, a greater proportion of students will attain the instructional objectives when instruction is differentiated for different types of students. Glaser (1967) and others pointed out that psychologists have been too optimistic in their expectations of formulating general laws of learning and have not given sufficient attention to individual differences. In his APA presidential address, Cronbach (1957) encouraged psychologists in the experimental and correlational disciplines to combine their interests and methods to observe experimental effects for subjects of different characteristics and to conduct investigations to find aptitude-treatment interactions (ATIs). The goal of research on ATI is to find significant disordinal interactions between alternative treatments and personological variables, i.e., to develop alternative instructional programs so that optimal educational payoff is obtained when students are assigned differently to the alternative programs. The personological variable in ATI research is defined as any measure of individual characteristics, e.g., IQ, scientific interest, or anxiety. Although there is an increasing interest in the topic of ATI among educational psychologists, very little empirical evidence has been provided to support the concept. So few experiments have shown a significant educational payoff when students were given differential instruction that Gage and Unruh (1967, p. 368) were led to ask:

Effects of Pictures on Learning to Read, Comprehension and Attitudes

Abstract: If fish were to become scientists, the last thing they might discover would be water. Similarly, researchers have too often failed to investigate important aspects of their environment because being immersed in it, they fail to notice certain components of it; or, having noticed a component, they simply assume that it must be that way. One such example from reading is the ubiquitous use of illustrations in books for beginning reading instruction. Today nearly all children are taught to read from books containing pictures. In this country this practice goes back at least to 1729 when the New England Primer incorporated pictures with the text. In Europe during the 1650's, Comenius used pictures in his Orbis Pictus to teach reading. Only occasionally does one find a writer (Dechant, 1964) questioning the use of pictures or a published reading series, such as the Bloomfield and Barnhard (1963) readers, attempting to teach reading without pictures. Teachers usually accept the fact that beginning reading texts have pictures without wondering what effect pictures have on learning to read.

Differential Weighting: A Review of Methods and Empirical Studies

Abstract: When measures are to be combined to form a composite measure or to predict a criterion, the question of differential weighting of the component measures arises. Can differential weighting improve the reliability of the composite or provide a more valid composite than would be obtained if the component measures were merely summed or averaged? Theoretically the answer to this question should be \"yes.\" It is unlikely that the component measures will be equally reliable, have equal variances, be equally intercorrelated with one another, and be equally correlated with the underlying variable which the composite is to measure or with the exter­ nal criterion which is to be predicted. However, since each of these charac­ teristics of the component measures will be reflected in the composite measure, it is to be expected, on purely logical grounds, that differential weighting would be effective. When a criterion measure is available, multiple-regression techniques provide a set of weights optimal for minimizing the error of prediction for the group on which the weights were derived, under the usual assumptions of normality and linearity of regression. Or, alternatively, the weights may be chosen so as to maximize certain internal criteria such as the reliability of the composite measure. All methods weight most heavily those component measures which are \"best\" according to the particular criterion adopted, and they weight least, perhaps negatively, those which are \"worst.\" McDonald (1968) offered a \"unified treatment of the weighting prob­ lem,\" a general procedure for obtaining weighted linear combinations of variables. The procedure includes the following as special cases: multiple regression, canonical variate analysis, principal components, maximum reli­ ability, canonical factor analysis, and some other well-known methods. McDonald's procedure yields certain desirable invariance properties across transformations of the variables. Although the approach is not discussed

Control of Student Mediating Processes During Verbal Learning and Instruction

Abstract: The general thesis of this paper is that the activities the student engages in when confronted with instructional tasks are of crucial importance in determining what he will learn. The alternative is to view the student as a passive receptacle whose learning and performance are directly determined by input variables. In the latter view, long the dominant one in psychology as well as in education, the function of the educational researcher is to develop what Rothkopf (1965, 1968) calls a "calculus of practice". However, if the student is inevitably an active agent in his own learning, it is important to consider an approach in which the emphasis is upon discovering ways of managing the student activities which give rise to learning.

Boundary Conditions for Mathemagenic Behaviors1

Abstract: Herbert Spencer once said that when a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the .greater will be his confusion. There is more knowledge about instructional processes available today than ever before; and there is more confusion. Educational psychologists write that educational psychology seems to be “ . . . in a superficial, ill-digested, and typically disjointed and watered-down miscellany of general psychology, learning theory, developmental psychology, social psychology, psychological measurement, psychology of adjustment, mental hygiene, client-centered counseling and child-centered education . . . \" (Ausubel, 1968, p. 1), and that “ . . . the study of instruction has produced a tremendous quantity of empirical research studies, many of them without thoughtful conceptualizations, without explicit responsibility for developing theory of instruction, and without contribution to knowledge about instruction\" (Wittrock, 1967, p. 1). As Spencer warned, intellectual disorder (in educational psychology) has resulted in confusion. As suggested in the quotes above, this disorder stems in part from two afflictions that have plagued the research community.

Reconstruction of Educational Research

Abstract: If there are some subjects on which the results obtained have finally received the unanimous assent of all who have attended to the proof, and others which .. .have never succeeded in establishing any considerable body of truths, so as to be beyond denial or doubt; it is by generalizing the methods successfully followed in the former enquiries, and adapting them to the latter, that we may hope to remove this blot on the face of science.

5: Evaluation of Classroom Instruction

Abstract: suggest modifications for local evaluation of instruction. Four potential uses of these instruments are described and examples are given of each: assessing variability in classroom behavior, assessing whether the teacher's performance agrees with specified criteria, describing classroom interaction, and determining relationships between observed classroom behavior and outcome measures. Finally, several difficulties in the use of observational instruments and in the interpretation of the results are noted. Major emphasis is given to the evaluation of instruction within specific curriculum projects, that is, programs in which the instructional materials were developed by special groups such as the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. The term curriculum refers to the instructional materials and the suggestions for their use; the term instruction or instructional program refers to the interaction among teachers and students as the materials are used.

The Stability of Teacher Effects Upon Student Achievement

Abstract: This review focuses on the stability, or consistency, of teacher effectiveness. In the review the term "teacher effects" refers to residual class mean achievement scores in which a measure of prior achievement or student aptitude is used to adjust posttest scores by regression. Although there have been numerous studies seeking to determine the correlates of teacher effects within a given time period, much less effort has been devoted to assessing the consistency of teacher effects across two intervals (e.g., two lessons or two years). This paper reviews and discusses nine studies concerned with the generality of teacher effects across two instructional periods. Nine studies are too few to support any conclusions, especially when the designs of the studies were not equally rigorous. Therefore, one of the purposes of writing the review is to call attention to the existing research in this area, and to the problems in interpreting the results. It is hoped that future studies will be conducted to replicate the existing studies and to help resolve some of the issues which they raise.

1: Objectives, Priorities, and Other Judgment Data

Abstract: This review is embedded in a plea. It is a plea to treat educational objectives as data. Fallible data. The review itself surveys methods for those particular data that reflect judgment of what education should accomplish. Evaluation requires judgment. Decision-making requires judgment. Both are judgmental in themselves but also depend on judgments previously made. A school and a curriculum are where they are because of judgments from within and from without. Judgments are made early, and late, and in between times. To understand what a school is doing requires an understanding of what a school is expected to do. In education, as elsewhere, judgments will continue to rest on incomplete knowledge, imprecise measurements, and inadequate experience. No error-free system is possible, but improvements are within easy reach. The evaluator may lessen the arbitrariness of judging and decision-making by introducing data-gathering methods already developed by other social scientists. Social psychologists, behavioral scientists, economists, political scientists, and historians routinely study opinions, preferences, and values. Many of their methods can be used to measure the judgments that shape an educational program.

2: Politics and Research: Evaluation of Social Action Programs In Education

Abstract: Although program evaluation is no novelty in education, its objects have changed radically. The national thrust against poverty and discrimination introduced a new phenomenon with which evaluators must deal: large-scale programs of social action in education. In addition to generating much activity in city schools, these programs produced considerable confusion whenever efforts were made to find out whether they were "working." The sources of the confusion are not hard to identify. Prior to 1964, the objects of evaluation in education consisted almost exclusively of small programs concerned with such things as curriculum development or teacher training: they generally occurred in a single school or school district, they sought to produce educational change on a limited scale, and they typically involved modest budgets and small research staffs. This all began to change in the mid-1960's, when the federal government and some states established broad educational improvement programs. The programs-such as Project Headstart, Title I of the 1965 ESEA, and Project Follow-Through-differ from the traditional objects of educational evaluation in several important respects: (I) they are social action programs, and as such are not focused narrowly on teachers' in-service training or on a science curriculum, but aim broadly at improving education for the disadvantaged; (2) the new programs are directed not at a school or a school district, but at millions of children, in thousands of schools in hundreds of school jurisdictions in all the states; (3) they are not conceived and executed by a teacher, principal, a superintendent, or a researcher-they were created by the Congress and are administered by federal agencies far from the school districts which actually design and conduct the individual projects.

8: Transition from School to College

Abstract: As used in higher education, the term disadυantaged is vague and increasingly unacceptable to those deemed disadvantaged by others. It remains, however, the term generally used to designate groups of students from ethnic or socio-economic backgrounds that have in the past been underrepresented in American colleges and universities. Prac­ tically, the term is now used most to describe students, regardless of financial or social circumstances, who are Afro-American, MexicanAmerican, Puerto Rican, or American Indian. As a matter of rhetoric, the term includes white students from families that are both poor and isolated from the middle class. Actually, the term is almost always used to refer to students who can be grouped in some simple way and, except for occasional references to Appalachia, white students are not prominent in programs avowedly for disadvantaged students. Ideological movements involving \"third world\" coalitions sometimes include Orientals, but the rate of college attendance of Orientals is apparently very high and their educational chievement is approximately the same as that of the general population (Coleman et al., 1966). For the purpose of this chapter, we shall follow the customary usage and consider the disadvantaged to be members of groups that have his­ torically been underrepresented in higher education and which, as groups, are clearly below national averages on economic and educational indices. Much of the literature is concerned with black Americans. This is a particularly awkward time to review this research. Whether we consider that concern for expansion of educational opportunity can be traced to the academies of colonial times or that problems of exclusion and denial of access have just been discovered, it is clear that the ad­ mission of large numbers of disadvantaged youths to colleges has been a matter of high priority for a very short time.

5: Social Class and the Socialization Process

Abstract: The literature on social class differences in socialization within our own society has much in common with the cross-cultural literature dealing with societies throughout the world. Much of it is based upon descriptive accounts of widely varying adequacy. These reports have engendered stereotyped views of the behavior of each class and have fostered a modal-man approach to social class membership. Thumbnail sketches of what a lower-class or middle-class person "is like" are a familiar part of this literature; see, for example, Cavan's (1964) sketch of each of six classes from upper-upper to lower-lower. As in much cross-cultural writing on modal personality of societies, the word-pictures employed to describe a social class personality inevitably tend to emphasize the homogeneity of behavior within a class and the heterogeneity across classes. Because it is irrelevant to the main purpose of such writing, little attention is ordinarily given to discussions of variability within a class or of similarities across classes. In discussing the class personality profiles that have been drawn, Clausen and Williams (1963) pointed out that, although they are largely unsubstantiated, these profiles resulted "in some remarkably tenacious and persistent stereotypes." The readiness of many writers to treat social class differences in this way is somewhat surprising in light of the very vagueness of the social class concept. A modal-man approach and emphasis on inter-group variation are plausible when applied to discrete societies that have clearly defined membership and are distinguishable from other groups in many obvious ways. Initially, they are much less plausible when applied to subgroups of one society having uncertain membership with much interaction and mobility among them and sharing a common core of history and values.

Review of Research Involving Applied Behavior Analysis in the Classroom

Abstract: If one describes a study involving an applied analysis of behavior to a teacher, she will probably remark, "Why, what is new about that? I've been doing those things in my classroom for years!" If the teacher were asked to describe what she does in her classroom during a day, a week, or a year, one might even get a general description of her behavior that would enable a listener to classify her work as a form of applied behavior analysis. The description that she gave might loosely fit some of the dimensions of an applied behavior analysis as discussed by Baer, Wolf and Risley (1968). These dimensions involve an evaluation of applied research as it relates to the criteria of applied, behavioral, analytic, and technological, conceptual systems, both effective and general. According to the above criteria, the teacher might have applied some principles of behavior to improve important behaviors such as acquisition of subject matter. She may also have quantified behaviorally her techniques by scores on tests, grades, etc. The teacher might have been analytic if, when she tried a specific technique and her students improved, the technique was then discontinued to see if the improvement deteriorated. Our teacher might also be technological, if other teachers can replicate her techniques. The teacher in question may to some extent relate her procedures to a conceptual system of basic behavioral concepts. Most teachers consider their techniques effective because the majority of their students leave the classroom at the end of the year with better academic skills than when they entered the classroom. Finally, most teachers would state that there is generality in the various behaviors that they effect. For example, the subtraction principles learned at the beginning of the year can be utilized in solving more complex problems such as long division. If one were to analyze critically the teacher's statements and her actual behavior in the classroom, there would be only a slight correspondence between the criteria mentioned above and the teacher's behavior. The lack of specific correspondence is explained in an article on behavioral modification in education (Homme & Tosti, p. 4).

3: Mutability of Intelligence and Epidemiology of Mild Mental Retardation

Abstract: Individuals and groups vary in measured intellectual performance at different times, and here we attempt to order knowledge about this mutability, particularly as it may bear on the distribution of mental retardation. Our object was to find a secure basis for statements about the mutability of intelligence and to set those statements out as testable propositions. Such propositions can find application in practice if they are valid; they can be rejected and supplanted by others if they are invalid; and they can be elaborated and specified if they are too general. There is no need here to enter into controversy on the heritability of intelligence (Conway, 1958; Burt, 1961; Jensen, 1969). Current genetic models emphasize that the relative contribution of heritable and environmental factors is by no means fixed and may change with changed environmental conditions (Edwards, 1969). Identical twins show a high degree of concordance for many characteristics, but for the epidemiologist it is often less fruitful to examine the circumstances in which they resemble each other than the circumstances in which they are dissimilar. The heritable components of a characteristic that has a continuous distribution, like IQ, are assumed to result from multiple genes that are polymorphic; each polymorphic gene may express itself in different forms, each form in different degrees. The multiple forms of expression allow for subtle and complex interaction with the environment. Current genetics, in common epidemiology, uses models of multiple causality. Even where the heritable component of a particular characteristic appears to be large, the models are compatible with dramatic changes in the frequency of the characteristic produced by the environment. Tuberculosis and rheumatic fever, diseases for which a genetic element has seemed established, have dwindled to a small fraction of the rates that existed a half-century ago. Similarly, the heritable component for height and weight has been estimated to be larger than the heritable component of IQ scores, yet this century has seen considerable increases in the height and weight of the populations of industrial societies.

2: Immigrants and the Schools*:

Abstract: It is hard to imagine anything more characteristically American than faith in the efficacy of schooling. Particularly since the late nineteenth century, public education has been viewed as an antidote for the diminishing equality of opportunity generally thought to be associated with cities, industry, immigration, and hardening class structure. This view of schooling is based on the idea that in advanced industrial societies occupational success depends upon intellectual competence. Although Americans are accustomed to the way that notion was expressed in Brown v. Board of Education and the Sputnik debates, Ellwood Cubberly (1909, pp. 18, 19) put it just as aptly when he wrote of industrialism:

7: Decentralization and Community Participation in Public Education

Abstract: Although one of the traditional goals of education in the United States has been to prepare citizens for participation in a democratic society, American public education in large cities has been characterized by centralization, standardization, and professionalization which allow for little democratic participation. In general, the moves toward centralization in urban and rural areas have been progressive: centralization has provided uniform and equal educational opportunity, raised professional standards and created efficient and economical systems. In some instances, however, increased centralization resulted from political momentum rather than educational planning and from an unquestionable faith in the efficiency of power accumulated at a single point. Three questions are inherent in any evaluation of a centralized or decentralized political system: 1) to what extent are the primary needs and expressed wishes of clients of the system represented in the process? 2) are the identification and involvement of the clients with the process advanced or retarded? and 3) is the system maximally efficient in accomplishing its purpose? In education, goals are largely defined in terms of preparing individuals for functioning in a democratic society; thus the three questions are interrelated.

3: Curriculum Evaluation

Abstract: Curriculum evaluation appeared as a topic of a chapter in three of the five issues of the 1969 Review of Educational Research. The emphasis on this topic is, if nothing else, disconcerting to a reviewer who must plow the same field again; it is also puzzling when compared with the infrequent appearances of evaluations of actual curricula or curricular materials in either the research or the subject journals. AERJ, for example, contained no papers in its last three volumes ('67-'69) that might be counted as an evaluation of a curriculum, a curricular prescription (such as Montessori or Headstart), or curricular materials. This is perhaps not surprising given the character of AERJ, but when this same finding was obtained after a survey of School Review, Harvard Educational Review, Social Education, Science Teacher, College English, College Composition and Communication, Research in the Teaching of English, and Theory into Practice, the contrast with the concerns reflected in the Review of Educational Research is striking. These journals do have short reviews of texts and notes on curricular problems, but nothing equivalent to the preoccupation of the Review with this one theme.

6: Measurement Techniques In Evaluation

Abstract: The demand for sophisticated and compre­ hensive evaluation of educational efforts is affecting thinking about measurement techniques and strategies. Evaluation for many years has been equated with a process of determining whether specified objectives are attained, but current evaluation models focus on a larger number of phenomena. The objectives of an educational effort are still an important component of evaluation, but the current models are more inclusive. Evaluation theorists indicate that evaluation should attend to outcomes other than specified objectives, to inputs or antecedent conäitions, and to processes or transactions. The implementation of an input-process-outcome evaluation plan raises important measurement problems. The inclusion of the many variables in a comprehensive evaluation requires a massive amount of measurement and classification. There are also problems associated with obtaining valid and reliable measurement and classifications of a great many variables, including many not traditionally considered in evaluation methodology.

Bayesian Guidance Technology

Abstract: In this paper we present a discussion of the use of educational tests in guidance services as seen in the light of modern developments in statistical theory and computer technology, and of the increasing demands for such services. A focus and vocabulary for this discussion is found in Turnbull's recent article on "Relevance in Testing" (1968). Following an introductory discussion of the need for guidance services, some very recent work in Bayesian inference is reviewed and the implications of this work for educational research methodology are noted. Special attention is given to the Lindley equations which provide solutions for a number of problems in the comparative prediction of academic achievement. We suggest that in a changing educational environment the Bayesian methodology can provide an increase in the effectiveness of such programs as Horst's monumental Washington Pre-College Testing Program. We see comparative prediction as an idea whose time has come.

4: Disadvantaged Rural Youth

Abstract: Previous research reviewers have tended to overlook the rural student and the characteristics which may be unique to him and his situation. In this chapter, I attempt to identify those characteristics which, because they are unique, tend to cause the student in rural areas to become disadvantaged. During the last few years, a considerable amount of material was written about rural America, but little of it was based upon research. Although adequate research design is lacking in many of the studies, they do tend to give the best picture available of the rural student. Much of the material cited in this article is not available in published journals; it came from fugitive documents of limited circulation which fortunately are available through the ERIC system. A number of writers pointed out that rurality by its very nature may have caused pupils to be disadvantaged. Ackerson (1967) stated at the National Outlook Conference on Rural Youth that the incidence of incentive to remain in high school or in college was evidently not as great in rural America, as shown by the high dropout rate, and in all too many cases, the educational and vocational opportunities offered to rural young people were quite limited. Lamanna and Samora (1967) obtained similar findings in a study of Mexican American youth. They found that rural or urban residence was strongly related to educational status. Urban residents were almost always better educated than rural residents, regardless of sex, age, maturity, race, or parentage. It is difficult to make broad generalizations other than those previously mentioned, concerning disadvantaged rural students. Such groups as the mountain folk of the Appalachian region, the Southern rural Negroes, the American Indians, or the Spanish-speaking youth of the Southwest have special problems. In addition, characteristics are often quite different for persons within the major groupings. Berman (1965) noted that it was invalid to consider all Indian students, no matter which tribal affiliation they maintained, as \"just Indians\" and to prepare an over-all program which purported to be adapted to the \"Indian population.\" Similarly, it is not acceptable to lump all Spanish-speaking students together under

The Values of the Academy (Moral Issues for American Education and Educational Research Arising from the Jensen Case)

Abstract: The \"Jensen affair\" is a case-study of the utmost importance to American education. Only if the lessons to be learned from it are heeded can the academies avoid the justified condemnation, damage and possible destruction that other institutions of this society have suffered and will suffer. The universities have already been under fire, but mainly as social institutions, for sharing the prejudices of society. The new threat is to their essence as the guardians and repositories of scholarship, the paragons of learning, the teachers of teachers of teachers.

4: Values, Goals, Public Policy and Educational Evaluation

Abstract: Assassinations, riots, demonstrations, pro­ longed and bitter political confrontations, and moralistic exhortations characterized the decade of the 1960's. Was it the worst of times or a prelude to the best of times? If the world survives, some unborn historian or social critic may be better able to pass judgment. But two things are clear as the decade of 1970 begins: there are few areas of American life where attitudes, values, goals, priorities, policies, and programs are not being challenged, and there is increasing impatience with dispassionate rational discussion among contending groups. Education is no exception. Added to the older and continuing con­ troversies over racial segregation, federal aid to the school, sex education, and public aid to parochial schools are newer disputes over community control and the discrepancy between rich and poor school districts. Decisions heretofore relatively insulated from politics are now being attacked by parents, political pressure groups, teachers, and minority groups. Curricu­ lum adoption, grading policy, school reorganization, tracking, composition of classes, promotion and assignment of school personnel, and the selection of pom-pom girls are now political issues. The policy maker's basic goals and values, whether openly professed, implicit, or falsely attributed, are being questioned. Often the charge of the challengers is that the \"system\" or its leaders are pursuing goals based on underlying values which are improper, and some change in values, leaders, programs, or the controlling constituency is necessary.

Imitation: Implications for Counseling and Therapy

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to review some of the recent literature and research involved in the development of imitative learning and related concepts. Throughout this paper, for the purposes of clarity and to provide a central point of semantic reference, all such phenomena will be collectively referred to as imitation. Research on imitation is characterized by a lack of continuity and a lack of synthesis into a unified, comprehensive, theoretical structure. The concept, in some form, has been investigated by child psychologists, social psychologists, counseling psychologists, physiological and perceptual psychologists, psychotherapists, personality theorists, learning theorists, teachers, and industrial psychologists. Many of these researchers found similar results in their work, but they used different constructs and terminologies to interpret their findings.

Economic Benefits of College Education

Abstract: In 1928 Walter S. Gifford read three reports on the economic benefits of college education; he then wrote an article for Harper's Magazine (Gifford, 1928a) in which he said, the more education you have, the more money you make. His article created a sensation (Hutchins, 1936). Gifford, president of AT&T, was an important man on the national scene from the late 1920s through the early 1940s. In announcing that business wants the scholar, he was speaking for many men of affairs and verbalizing a major shift in the American folklore of values and a momentous change in higher education.

Professional Role Discontinuities in Educational Careers

Abstract: Oscar Wilde wrote: \"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what you want, and the other is getting it.\" His irony may not only apply to childhood dreams, but to^the incongruity of anticipation and reality in adult careers. With this possibility in mind, my purpose here is to review some research on role transition among educators, specifically college presidents and teachers in the lower schools. In doing so, it seems useful to analyze their personalities and roles in terms of Jacob GetzePs socio-psychological theory of behavior and to construe their organ­ izations, schools, and universities, as bureaucracies in Max Weber's sense.

Recent Applications of Computer Technology to School Testing Programs1

Abstract: This review contains a summary of the principal applications of computer technology to school testing programs reported during the five-year period ending December 1968. Readers are referred to Cooley and Hummel (1969) for a comprehensive review of current efforts to apply computer systems techniques to guidance. There are three journals which have regular computer sections on computer applications in education and psychology. An excellent source for programs developed and applied to test analyses is the section included in the spring and autumn issues of Educational and Psychological Measurement. The computer section in Behavioral Science published bimonthly, although it mainly focuses on programs developed for research purposes, also reports on programs developed which are appropriate to psychometric procedures. The Nation's Schools includes a computer section which focuses on school data-processing applications. Other periodicals devoted exclusively to computer applications in education are as follows: AEDS Journal, AEDS Monitor, Automated Education Handbook and Newsletter, Data Processing for Education, Journal of Data Education, and Journal of Educational Data Processing.