The primary purpose of the study was to identify and describe the arguments used in the sex education controversy in the Dallas Independent School District. The issue was examined as a debate and as a social movement promoted and resisted by community rhetoricians. Arguments were elicited from interviews with rhetoricians on both sides of the issue.

This dissertation sought to determine the effects of a buddy system on a student's self-concept, academic achievement, attrition rate, and congruence levels. The buddy system treatment randomly paired two students for the purposes of sharing ideas, working on assignments, getting to know each other, and supporting one another. The study included three randomly selected sections of pre-college level, developmental writing classes from the Brookhaven College of the Dallas County Community College District. Three other classes served as the control group, and one instructor taught all six sections of the course. Three instruments were used as measures of change: the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (TSCS), designed by William H. Fitts, measured self-concept levels; the Personality and Educational Environment Scale (PEES), created by Roger Boshier, measured congruence levels; and a written paragraph measured achievement levels in English. Attrition percentages were based on the number of students enrolled during the second week of class who were not present during the sixteenth week of class. To test for significance, an analysis of covariance procedure was used on the TSCS, PEES, and written paragraph results, and a test for the difference between proportions for independent groups was used on the attrition percentages. The class sections were …

This study was concerned with the enrollment patterns in required general education courses by technicaloccupational students in an urban community college. The purposes of this study were to (1) examine the general education course enrollment patterns of technical occupational students in specific programs; (2) determine if completion of an English course yields a higher GPA; (3) profile the characteristics of the students who do and do not enroll in general education courses; (4) determine if students enrolled in certain technical-occupational programs are more likely to enroll in general education than students enrolled in similar programs; and (5) determine if completion of general education courses has a positive effect on overall GPA of students.

The problem of this study was performance on selected mathematics and reading assessment tests as predictors of achievement in remedial mathematics. The purpose of the study was twofold. The first was to determine the internal consistency of a locally developed remedial mathematics placement test and the mathematics section of the Pre-TASP Test. The second was to determine the predictive validity of performance on (a) the local remedial mathematics placement test, (b) the mathematics section of the Pre-TASP Test, and (c) the Descriptive Tests of Language Skills, Reading Comprehension Test in combination with demographic variables for mid-semester achievement, end-of-semester achievement, and course success in three levels of remedial mathematics at Richland College, Dallas, Texas.

The purpose of this study was to determine faculty participation in and approval of professional growth and renewal activities in the Dallas County Community College District. The population consisted of 526 full-time faculty employed by the district. The DCCCD Survey instrument, which was used in the study, included activities grouped into seven categories: career development, leaves, international activities, instructional renewal, grants, reward, and a miscellaneous category. Faculty members identified participation in activities; they also identified their approval or disapproval of all activities on a five point Likert-type scale. The population was grouped by teaching field, age, years-of-experience and campus for statistical analyses. A Chi-square test of goodness of fit was conducted to determine if significant differences existed between expected and observed participation among groups in each of the seven categories. An analysis of variance was completed to determine significant differences of opinion. The findings of the study indicated significant differences between expected and observed participation in the following categories: international and instructional activities when faculty were grouped by teaching fields; reward activities among years-of-experience groups. Significant differences of opinion were reported in all but the miscellaneous category when faculty were grouped by teaching field. Other significant differences were reported in …

The purpose of this study was to determine if seminary students, identified as conservative, moderate, or liberal in theological beliefs, were significantly different on the following personality variables: dogmatism, thinking introversion, theoretical orientation, aestheticism, complexity, autonomy, religious orientation, impulse expression, anxiety level, practical outlook, and personal integration. The instrument used to measure theological beliefs was the "Inventory of Theological Beliefs." Dogmatism was measured by the "Rokeach Dogmatism Scale." All other variables were measured by the Omnibus Personality Inventory.