Formal job performance evaluation of a church's pastoral staff has been almost nonexistent in many churches. While business and education have been making strides in evaluation techniques during the past three decades, the church is just beginning to notice the need for this kind of accountability and ongoing professional development. In this research, the author applied the evaluation techniques of education to church pastoral staff members. Evaluation can be understood as both a formative process and a summative decision. The steps to planning an evaluation that will be both formative and summative are discussed. Qualifying the ministerial tasks through objective job descriptions will enable the church to quantify the job performance through evaluation. Suggestions are given for developing a ministerial evaluation instrument. In this research a model from educational evaluation was adapted for use in a local church setting. One denomination was selected to demonstrate the process of evaluation development. Denominational governments differ considerably. Therefore, the key stakeholders of the church for the chosen denomination were identified as pastors and church board members. These stakeholders were used as a "panel of experts." The Delphi technique was used to develop consensus from the participants concerning (1) the core skills of ministerial …

The purpose of this paper is to establish a need for more accessible fine arts courses offered to adults and more specifically in music, to design a series of programs that would give an introduction to beginning functional piano through the use of educational television. The paper includes ten lesson outlines for thirty minute program segments including a pilot script. This educational television series is designed to stimulate the student's continued playing of the piano with guided instruction through class or private lessons. A particular method of piano pedagogy used for educational television is explored. Procedures followed in order to be able to film the project are also covered, It is suggested that a survey in the particular viewing audience area be conducted and tests given to a cross-section of adults before implementation of the program.

This study identified the number of learning projects undertaken by thirty-eight retired educators and examined the extent to which these experiences were associated with the body weight and the exercise patterns of the subjects. A list of 1091 names of retired educators was obtained and 400 names were randomly selected to receive a brief survey seeking responses to demographic, personal and miscellaneous questions relating to their efforts to continue to pursue learning. Interviews were arranged with thirty-eight subjects who met established criteria. The 19 8 3 Metropolitan Height and Weight Tables were used to estimate weight characteristics and a probe sheet was designed to identify the number of hours spent exercising in activities vigorous enough to increase heart beat. In-depth interviews were conducted by the investigator using the questions from Tough's Interview Schedule for Studying Some Basic Characteristics of Learning Projects, and the probe sheet designed by the investigator. The interviews focused on the efforts to continue learning during the past twelve months and on the participation in vigorous exercise during the past twelve months. Findings were analyzed by computing t-tests for independent means and the Pearson product moment method of correlation. Comparisons of the results from this study were …

This study was a comparison of the perceptions of directors of and participants in senior centers with regard to needs of the elderly and delivery of services to them. The sample consisted of a random selection of 200 of the 741 centers in the state of Texas. Responses were received from 111 center directors and 609 elderly participants. An instrument that used a Likert-type scale to measure the importance of needs and frequency of delivery of services was devised to survey needs in the areas of health, nutrition, recreation, education, and transportation. No statistically significant differences were found between perceptions of directors and participants with regard to needs, delivery of services, or the differences between needs and actual delivery of services at the centers. When participants were grouped on the basis of gender, age, and ethnicity, males and minority groups rated both needs and delivery higher than did females and the majority ethnic group. The sixty to seventy age group rated education needs significantly higher than did the older age groups.

The problem of this study was the description of two year college instructional and vocational-technical administrators' expectations concerning the enrollment of adults over thirty years of age in two-year colleges and the colleges' need to respond to this population. Ninety of 125 Texas administrators eligible to participate and the Delphi process developed a consensus of opinion. The Delphi process consists of a series of three rounds of solicitation of opinion from panelists through responses to questionnaires and controlled feedback to the panelists of information relevant to the issue in the form of a group statistical response.

The problem of this study was a test of a specific videotape designed to influence the actions of tour guides for older adult groups. The purposes of the study were to observe guide performances and older adult responses before and after training in techniques for sharing information with older adults in public spaces. The hypotheses were tested. 1) Guides after training would exhibit significant differences in behaviors of pointing, repeating, pausing, questioning, conversing, facing art when talking, talking inaudibly, pacing rapidly. 2) Older adult drop-outs would decrease on tours with especially trained guides.

The problem with which this study is concerned is that of determining the specific stated factors that influenced Nigerian adults to participate in adult basic educational programs of the Nigerian Baptist Convention which lead to the first-school-leaving-certificate. The purpose of the study was to identify and examine the factors that influence Nigerian adults to participate in the adult basic and certificate educational programs of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, and to make recommendations for program improvements based on these findings. The data for this study were collected from questionnaires which included demographic information about the participants and a list of reasons for educational participation and needs-met statements. Questionnaire items were rated on a five-point scale. The researcher mailed 600 questionnaires to both adult basic and certificate education students in the adult education programs of the Nigerian Baptist Convention in Ibadan, Nigeria. The basic education group responded to 126 questionnaires, while the certificate groups responded to 122 questionnaires.

The application of Gowin's knowledge vee as a means to design instruction for adult Bible study was investigated in this study. The study was designed to determine whether subjects using this instructional approach differed from subjects using traditional instructional materials regarding their attitudes toward Bible study, attendance, knowledge retention, application of study materials to life, and recruitment of new class members.

The purpose of this study is to describe the perceptions of faculty development programs by two groups of full-time community college faculty members—arts and sciences instructors and vocational-technical instructors. To guide the development of this study, the following research questions were formulated. 1. Do organized faculty development programs have the same impression on the arts and sciences faculty members as on the vocational-technical members? 2. What specific effects do these faculty members believe that faculty development programs have had on instructional strategies, related faculty activities and professional attitudes? 3. To what extent do these faculty members perceive that the faculty development program is related to the reward system? 4. To what degree do faculty members perceive that institutional or departmental innovations have resulted from faculty development programs. What types of innovations have occurred, and what types should occur?

This study examines nursing students' adoption of inferential sets in a clinical situation. The investigation determines (1) the particular inferential set(s) nursing students adopt toward a patient in a clinical situation; (2) the particular inferential set(s) adopted by sophomore and senior nursing students in a clinical situation; and (3) whether or not inferential sets adopted by the sophomore and senior nursing students differ. Sophomore and senior nursing students at a woman's university in Texas were asked to complete a research tool designed to determine inferential set adoption.

This study aims to increase the level of knowledge about the gerontological knowledge of a sample of registered nurses by creating a portable and concise continuing education seminar that is based upon the fundamental components of the normal aging process. The impact on the learning outcomes of an accredited continuing education seminar that was developed for this study was analyzed. The continuing education seminar focused on some of the major areas of social gerontology pertinent to nursing. Although other variables (age, gender, educational level, and previous gerontological training) were analyzed, none were found to have significant effect on the level of knowledge.

This study assesses the continuing education needs of social caseworkers employed by the Community Care for the Aged, Blind and Disabled Program Division of the Texas State Department of Human Resources. A model by which needs assessments and discrepancy evaluation can be conducted was identified. The study was designed to answer three major questions. These were (1) What are the behavioral competencies critical to the effective practice of C.C.A.B.D. social casework within the Texas State Department of Human Resources? (2) What are the current continuing education needs of C.C.A.B.D. caseworkers with respect to these competencies? (3) What significant discrepancies exist as to the perception of these needs among caseworkers, supervisors, and administrators that hold implications for continuing education program planning. The needs assessment model developed in this study is designed to overcome many of the limitations of traditional approaches to needs assessment by defining critical job requirements from the perspective of current practice as well as administrative policy, establishing a profile of the successful worker as a model for staff development, and integrating the perceptions of administrators, supervisors, and workers in identifying continuing education needs.

This study examined the relationship between the continuing professional education practices of Southern Baptist pastors and their tenure in their pastoral positions. A survey questionnaire was designed to collect data about the pastors' continuing education and pastoral tenure. A stratified sample of 500 pastors was selected from the 36,235 Southern Baptist churches according to church membership. A total of 217 (43 percent) of the questionnaires was returned and used in the data analysis. Thirty percent of the pastors reported spending no days in continuing education during the past year. Sixty-two percent spent five days or more in continuing professional education. Tenure was not significantly linked to continuing education among the pastors. A personal perception of ministerial competency was positively related to continuing education. The majority of pastors felt accountable to God and themselves in terms of their competency. They strongly resisted any move toward certification or accreditation. The majority of the pastors did not view mobility as an alternative to becoming involved in continuing education. However, the reasons reported for mobility could be interpreted as needs assessment addressed by professional growth. A majority of the pastors strongly agreed that a basic seminary education did not alone prepare a minister for …

This research is a study of the relationship of the organizational characteristic of technology to rate of change in a human services organization. The first operation, directed to the technology construct, collected data and analyzed statistical differences on each of the separate indices of task difficulty and task variability and on the combined indices of the two dimensions. A second operation, directed to the rate of change construct, collected data and ranked the five social services programs. This research indicates that multiple technologies do exist among programs within the corporate structure of a single human services organization, and that programs differ in the rate at which rule changes occur. This research, however, indicates that technology is not related to change. The definition of change used in this study considered only one form of organizational adaptation: rate of change in program policies and procedures. Technology, however, may be related to other measures of change such as new programs, reorganizations, and staff increases.

This study was designed to investigate the current practice of continuing professional education in the library science departments of teachers colleges and universities in Thailand and the role of the library science department in continuing professional education for librarians. In order to accomplish this task, two questionnaires were developed and administered to 236 chairpersons and library school faculty of 31 tecahers colleges and 9 government universities. Of the returned questionnaires, 72.88% were usable. Data were analyzed using percentage and a contingency chi-square test. The major conclusion of the study was that while the library science departments of teachers college and universities in Thailand provide to some extent, all 20 continuing education items of the Association for Library and Information Science Education model, only two were identified as being provided by more than a majority of institutions.

A lack of research in adult literacy for both native speakers and speakers of English as a second language led to the development of the Test of Affixes in Syntactic Structures (TASS) for use in a pilot study (Dogger, January 1978) in which knowledge of derivational morphology was tested to determine its possible relationship with reading for English as a second language students. Test construction was followed by a thorough verification procedure which is the purpose of this study. In September 1978 the following measures of test strength were established: construct validity, content validity, item difficulty, item discrimination, internal consistency, rational equivalence, and concurrent validity. The degree of relationship between reading proficiency, as demonstrated by subject performance on the Iowa Silent Reading Test, Level III (ISRT,III), and knowledge of derivational affixes, as demonstrated by subject performance on TASS, was also established. Results show that successful performance on the ISRT, III includes reading strategies beyond those required for successful performance on TASS. In other words, mastery of language structures as represented by English orthography is necessary but not sufficient for college-level reading proficiency.