The purpose of this study was to evaluate the BASICS program. The program, Building and Applying Strategies for Initial Cognitive Skills, was developed by the Institute for Staff Development of Miami, Florida, for educating teachers, paraprofessionals, and parents in techniques considered essential in helping pre-school, primary grade, and special education children develop initial cognitive skills. The study was undertaken to determine the effects of the program on the self-concept, experimental beliefs, dogmatism, and pupil control ideology of in-service elementary school teachers who participated in it as an elective graduate level course. The design of the study was the non-equivalent control group design. Twelve subjects who volunteered to participate in the program formed the experimental group. Twelve other subjects were randomly selected from a graduate-level class in elementary school curriculum development to form the control group. The instructor who was in charge of the BASICS program taught the class from which the control subjects were selected. The study was conducted during the first six-week summer term of 1975 at North Texas State University. The two groups were administered pre and post the Tennessee Self Concept Scale, the Personal Beliefs Inventory (PBI), the Teacher Practices Inventory (TPI), the Dogmatism Scale Form E, …

This study was designed to determine the effects of the infusion of career-education concepts into the language arts and social studies curricula of fifth-grade students. Hypotheses related to differences in mean scores of students in the experimental group and the control group on the Reading Test, Language Test, Study Skills Test of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, as well as on the total battery scores. Additional hypotheses were formulated concerning the difference between proportional mean scores on the Career Education Questionnaire and three self-concept inventories designed by Instructional Objectives Exchange. The following conclusions are based on the findings of this study: (1) Infusion of career-education concepts into content areas of the curriculum can result in the increased academic achievement of-students. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that, statistically, the arithmetic mean scores for the experimental and the control groups were not significantly different. Gains in language expression and mechanics, reading vocabulary, and references study skills can result when students relate academic knowledge to the world of work; (2) Students' attitudes toward career education can be altered through the provision of factual information and meaningful experiences; and (3) The self-concepts of students are relatively stable and not altered appreciably …