The purpose of this study was to determine, whether there was a significant difference in the leisure reading habits of two groups of women who were college graduates; one group of elementary classroom teachers, grades one through six, and another group of women who were not teachers.

The purpose of this study was to create a base of descriptive information about computer applications in the elementary and secondary classrooms of Thailand. To accomplish this task, two forms of questionnaires were developed and administered to a randomly selected sample of 527 school teachers and 94 college instructors throughout the Northeastern area of Thailand. Data were analyzed using a chi-square test, a £-test, and a one-way analysis of variance procedure.

This qualitative research study examined the usage of whole-language instruction in the classrooms of four self-professed whole-language teachers. Data were collected from the following sources: classroom observations; interviews with the teachers and their principals; and a study of lesson plans, student work, textbooks, and curriculum guides. The following conclusions were drawn from the study. The teachers' pre-existing philosophical views regarding language instruction influenced the effectiveness with which they implemented whole-language instruction more than any other single factor. These philosophical bases also determined, to a large extent, the kinds of whole-language practices and strategies the teachers used in their instruction. The skills-oriented teachers most often stated that they used whole-language instruction in order to review or reinforce skills. The more holistic teachers most often stressed language development, language appreciation, and self expression. The data collected in this study led to the conclusion that teachers must become knowledgeable of whole-language principles and make a personal commitment to the whole-language philosophy in order to develop integrated, coherent whole-language instructional programs. The data also led the researcher to conclude that assessment of whole-language instruction was an area of ambiguity and uncertainty for the teachers involved in the study. The following recommendations were made from …

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students' attitudes towards writing and their abilities to write were affected by their teacher's participation in their writing assignments. The null hypotheses that no significant differences would be found were supported. The control group and two experimental groups were all composed of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders from a racially mixed elementary school in a large metropolitan school district. The two experimental groups received identical instruction in writing skills except that the teacher wrote with one group and not with the other. The attitude scale, constructed for this experiment, proved to be statistically invalid and unreliable.

This qualitative research study examined the concepts of authorship exhibited by twelve selected good readers and writers in grades six and eight. Data were collected during pre-writing session interviews, five hour-long writing sessions, and post-composition interviews, and from written compositions and questionnaires. The following conclusions were drawn from the study. School and home reading programs that emphasized children's literature selections and regular and wide-ranged reading practices directly influenced the subjects' writing behaviors and concepts of authorship. In addition, those students who performed strongest as authors were those who found time to write privately at home or in a home-like situation. Revision occurred in traditional ways, such as movement or deletion of text, but also appeared to be related to the subjects' personal writing styles, such as verbalization, mental outlining, or reading the text out loud. Both grade levels exhibited individual writing development through integration of experiences, knowledge, and physical and social maturation. For these young writers, the key factor in perceived authorship was whether a writer had an interest in and enjoyed writing.

The purposes of this study were (1) to survey the amount of time spent by elementary educators in reading professional literature; (2) to survey elementary educators' purposes for reading professional literature; (3) to survey the availability of professional literature to elementary educators; (4) to survey the circumstances which encourage or discourage the reading of professional literature by elementary educators; (5) to survey the types of sources of professional literature used by elementary educators; (6) to compare the amount of time spent by elementary teachers, elementary administrators, and elementary teach educators in reading professional literature; (7) to compare elementary teachers', elementary administrators', and elementary teach educators' purposes for reading professional literature; (8) to compare the availability of professional literature to elementary teachers, elementary administrators, and elementary teacher educators; (9) to compare the circumstances which encourage or discourage professional reading among elementary teachers, elementary administrators, and elementary teacher educators; and (10) to compare the types of sources of professional literature used by elementary teachers, elementary administrators, and elementary teacher educators.

The purpose of this study was to describe outstanding, veteran elementary teachers using an ethnographic approach. This qualitative study was conducted in a suburban independent school district in northeast Texas serving approximately 17,000 students. The data collected focused on five outstanding, veteran elementary teachers who had at least twenty years of uninterrupted teaching service. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, and the administration of the Mind Styles (Gregorc,1982) inventory. The findings of this research were as follows. This study found that many factors were responsible for retaining outstanding, veteran elementary teachers in the work force. These included adequate preparation, a strong personal commitment, a successful initial teaching assignment, a development of skills and abilities inside and outside the teaching field, and professional accomplishments throughout the teaching career.

The problem of the study was to compare the relationships between a cognitive-oriented and affective-oriented teacher in-service program on the subsequent incidence of humane characteristics in the classroom. Ninety-two teachers of grades 4, 5, and 6 from three school districts located in the Region XI Education Service Center area were involved in the study. One of the purposes of the study was to obtain information which could be helpful to Texas educators responsible for teacher in-service programs. It is critical that educators know the kinds of in-service programs which produce the greatest change in teacher behavior. This study concludes that in-service education programs which focus on specific instructional skills and strategies related to curriculum content are more viable in achieving the characteristics of a humane classroom than in-service programs which, though they be skills-oriented, do not relate specifically to curriculum content.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the differences and changes in integrated and segregated white students' self-concepts, racial attitudes, and academic achievements.

This research sought to determine if a significant relationship existed between various levels of dogmatism of supervising teachers and student teachers and the degree of change in attitude of the student teachers during student teaching.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is the identification of conditions, situations, and events that are important problems faced in the public elementary schools of Texas. Problems are categorized into sixteen areas: finance, desegregation and busing, school organization, school personnel, preschool and kindergarten, instructional improvement, reporting systems, pupil behavior, curriculum, in-service staff training, humanizing the schools, public relations, minority groups, migrant children, special education, and recent trends. The purpose of the study is to determine perceived importance of problems and to establish priorities of current issues from information obtained from education leaders of elementary schools.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the two instructional strategies for six phonic word-attack skills objectives and to focus on the following specific questions: (a) When student teachers use a basal-reader-oriented strategy (Treatment I) for teaching phonic word-attack skills, what will be the effects on elementary pupil achievement of these skills? (b) When student teachers use a systematic instructional strategy (Treatment II) for teaching phonic word-attack skills, what will be the effects on elementary pupil achievement of these skills? (c) How will the effects of these strategies compare? Written criterion-referenced phonic word-attack skills pre-tests were administered to approximately 110 third and fourth grade pupils. The validity of the criterion-referenced tests was judged by a team of reading specialists from North Texas State University. The reliability coefficients of the tests ranged from .57 to .93 and all were significant at the .01 level. This report concludes that when elementary pupil achievement of phonic word-attack skills is used as the criterion for student teacher effectiveness then training in the conscientious application of systematic instructional procedures incorporating research validated learning principles is a more effective procedure than requiring student teachers to follow the recommended procedures in basal readers. …

The problem with which this study is concerned is that of tracing the history of state level laws and resolutions which affected the elementary school curriculum in Texas' public schools during the years 1950-1983. The roles of the legislature, the State Board of Education, and the State Department of Education in relation to the curriculum are presented. The purposes of the study are to review state level legislation since 1950 that affected the curriculum, to update the work of earlier historical accounts of public education in Texas, and to provide a basis for understanding the current state of curriculum by focusing on its evolution. Inspection of the data reveals that numerous topics were added to the elementary curriculum during the years under study, resulting in a fragmented and complex curriculum. Many of these topics were repealed in 1981. The study concludes that the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education, as well as the legislature exert considerable influence over the curriculum, and that this influence seems likely to increase as the result of reform legislation enacted in 1981. Further study relating to the implementation effects of the new curriculum is recommended.

The problem of this study was to determine the effect of academic self-concept, student aspiration, intellectual achievement responsibility, and certain other personal factors on the attendance patterns of selected ninth grade students, and to develop from data on all factors a typical profile of conditions likely to result in high absenteeism and make recommendations for initial steps in remediation. As a result of the statistical analysis and subsequent retention or rejection of the null hypotheses, the significant findings of this study may be summarized as follows. (1) Ninth grade attenders are significantly younger than non-attenders. (2) Attenders had more siblings than non-attenders. (3) Attenders are significantly more involved in school organizations than non-attenders. (4) There is a higher frequency in suspensions among non-attenders. Based on analysis of the findings of this study and within the limitations of the population described in the procedure section, the following conclusions were formulated. (1) Students who have been retained, started school later, or for some reason are older than their classmates, are more likely to attend school irregularly.(2) Educators cannot expect to find the major causes of student absenteeism to be academic self-concept, intellectual achievement responsibility, or student aspiration. (3) Family size may be …

The problem was to assess the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in reading and math and to determine the relationship between achievement using CAI and selected learning style elements. Learning style elements were limited to motivation, learning alone or with peers, auditory, visual, tactual, and kinesthetic perceptions. The Learning Style Inventory provided learning style data and The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills measured achievement. Both tests were administered in the classroom. Three hundred (300) fourth-grade students in six suburban schools were divided into experimental and control groups. The treatment was CAI in reading or mathematics for fifteen minutes per day and regular instruction. The nonequivalent control group design allowed for testing and treatment conditions for intact groups. Pre- and post-test achievement measures were administered to all subjects. An analysis of covariance was computed for the achievement measures. A correlation coefficient was calculated to determine the relationship between achievement and each learning style element. The Manova multiple regression procedure was used to determine which combination of selected learning style elements could predict achievement. The pre-test and time on task were used as covariates to control for initial differences between groups. The findings were: (1) the experimental groups gained significantly higher scores …

The problem of this study was to determine the effects of computer programming instruction on fifth graders, as measured by gains, if any, on tests of logic and problem solving.