The problem of this investigation is a case study of parental involvement in the initial Plan A public school districts in Texas. The components of parental involvement isolated for the study are parent education, parent participation, and parent counseling. The major sources of data are questionnaires distributed to parents, teachers, and administrators in the initial Plan A public school districts. Secondary sources of data include interviews with the three categories of respondents to the questionnaires, communication and correspondence with the Regional Education Service Centers, and correspondence and reports from the Texas Education Agency concerning parental involvement. The purposes of the case study of parental involvement are (1) to analyze the various approaches to provide parent education services in the selected Plan A programs, (2) to analyze the various types of parent participation in the initial Plan A programs, (3) to analyze the existing and projected needs for parent counseling in Plan A, (4) to summarize findings into recommendations for effective parental involvement strategies in future implementations of Plan A in Texas, and (5) to suggest modifications or to raise questions for further investigation.

This investigation is concerned with determining the extent of inservice education provided for special education personnel by the five pilot programs of Plan A. The two methods of determining this involvement are a case study of the pilot programs' inservice education and its relationship to resource agencies such as the Texas Education Agency and Regional Education Service Centers. The purposes of this study include the following: (1) determining the principles underlying the philosophy formulated by school district personnel in regard to the nature and purpose of inservice training for Plan A, (2) identifying the nature, scope, and assessment of a three-year period of inservice education for the pilot Plan A programs, (3) identifying the successful components of and the problems encountered during the three-year period of inservice education, and (4) describing recommendations for future inservice education. Only the five pilot districts are described in the case studies of Plan A programs. Data is reported in the following sequence for each of the pilot districts: background information; philosophy and goals; pre-, in-, and post-service activities for 1970-1971, 1971-1972, and proposals for inservice education for 1972-1973. Also reported is information concerning the role of the Texas Education Agency and the Regional Education …

The problem with which this investigation was concerned was that of surveying the attitudes of parents, teachers, and principals toward parental involvement in school activities. The study had a threefold purpose. The first was to determine the attitudes of parents toward involvement in school activities. The second was to determine the attitudes of teachers and principals toward parental involvement in schools. The third was to identify attitudes of parents, teachers, and principals toward various methods of involvement.

This study is concerned with the problem of determining the competencies which inservice kindergarten teachers and kindergarten-teacher trainers consider most important for teaching kindergarten. There are four purposes of the study: to identify specific competencies needed to teach kindergarten, to determine the teacher competencies considered most important by kindergarten teachers, to determine teacher competencies considered most important by teacher trainers, and to compare the rankings of teacher competencies by kindergarten teachers and kindergarten-teacher trainers.

The purposes of this study were to determine the effect of a short-term parent-education program and to investigate the relationship between parents' knowledge of child development and parents' attitudes toward parent-child relationships. The basic problem under consideration was to assay whether the level of parental knowledge of child development principles makes a difference in the attitudes of the parent in the relationship. Hypothesis I predicted that subjects participating in the training sessions would exhibit a significant gain in knowledge of child development. An analysis of covariance determined the gain to be significant at the .01 level. Hypothesis II stated that a significant relationship would exist between the subjects' knowledge of the defined principles of child development and the subjects' attitudes toward parent-child interactions. A Pearson Product-Moment Correlation of the scores of experimental group and control group on the PARI and the cognitive test revealed a negative correlation of -0.1363. Thus, the second hypothesis that a significant relationship would exist had to be rejected. Hypothesis III projected that a significant difference would exist between the posttest attitudes of the participants of the experimental group and those of the control group. Analysis of covariance was used to determine the significance of the …

A study was made to determine the views of elementary principals regarding criteria for a quality kindergarten program and to plan a staff development program based upon the data collected. The study was limited to elementary principals in the eight Texas counties of Education Service Center Region 10 with kindergartens on their campuses during the 1973-1974 school year. Principals who had kindergartens on their campuses before the 1973-1974 school year did not perform better on the questionnaire than the principals with kindergartens for the first time during the 1973-1974 school year. Comparisons of individual and composite item scores showed similar responses from both groups, the only exception being on an item pertaining to the appropriateness of wheeled toys on the elementary playground. There was a difference of approximately 15 percent in favor of the more experienced group. Principals who had completed early childhood education courses scored slightly higher than principals who had not completed such courses. An increase in the number of semester hours completed did not appear to improve performance on the questionnaire.

The problem of the study was to discover whether the selfconcepts of selected children in the primary grades could be enhanced. The purpose of the study was to determine the feasibility of using tape-recorded stories to enhance the self-concepts of selected primary grade children. A treatment of the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale for sex differences showed no significant differences for either the experimental or control groups. Some enhancement of the self-concepts of primary grade children may be possible by means of auditory non-teacher directed activities under properly controlled conditions. Several areas should be further investigated. A regular school year study should be designed to produce results applicable to a more general population. Such a study might answer questions regarding peer influences, the relationship between self-concept and academic achievement, the tolerance of primary grade children for prolonged treatment, and teacher attitude toward conducting such activities. Studies should be conducted to determine the relative value of simultaneous visual and auditory presentations for the enhancement of self-concept.

The purpose of this study was twofold; to investigate the relationships between the musical development of two- and three-year-old girls and their mothers' musical backgrounds and the music in their home environments; and to investigate the significance of the differences in the musical development of two- and three-year-old girls with reference to their socio-economic status (SES) and ethnicity. The relationships between the musical development of all subjects and music in the home environment were positive, rendering correlation coefficients that were statistically significant. These statistical inferences indicated that the musical home environment (the product of the mother, the father, and other adults, and the availability of musical items and activities) has the strongest relationship to the musical development of the young child. This influence begins before the age of two and continues during the third year. It was also hypothesized that there would be a significant difference in the musical development of the two- and three- year- old girls with reference to SES and ethnicity. Analysis of variance was employed to ascertain these differences. The subjects remained in age groups and were statistically regrouped by SES and ethnicity for these analyses. From the inferences rendered by these analyses, neither SES nor …

This study investigates the differences in receptive language of kindergarten children who are taught by different language systems. This study compares the effectiveness of the three most widely adopted oral language systems in the state of Texas. The systems used were (A) Alpha Time, (B) Beginning Readiness Kit; Beginning to Read, Write, and Listen Kits I and II, and (c) McMillan Series R, Bank Street, Threshold K. S. Analysis of variance techniques were used to analyze statistically pretest and posttest scores derived from the sample. The .05 level of significance was used throughout the statistical analyses for rejection or retention of the null hypotheses. Preliminary analysis of data determined no systematic bias for teacher variability or for within group variability. Hypotheses 1, 2, 3, and 5 were tested using a 2 x 3 analysis of covariance. The pretest was used as the covariant in this analysis. No statistically significant differences in the classroom mean scores were determined between teaching methods, teaching methods with only girls as subjects, teaching methods with only boys as subjects, and boys and girls. Hypothesis 4, concerning the pretest differences between boys and girls, was tested using a t-test for independent samples. No statistically significant differences …

This study investigated the role of the public library in serving children from infancy to age six. The purposes of this research were to obtain recommendations from early childhood education authorities pertaining to the areas of services, programs, materials, physical facilities, and personnel and to utilize these data in the development of guidelines for public libraries. Findings revealed that the majority recommended utilization of volunteers and of early childhood education consultant; preparation of children's librarians in working with adults and young children; provision of services and programs focusing on parent education, led by specialists; preparation of child care personnel in storytelling; programs involving parent and child participation; coordination of public library efforts with those of other community agencies in order to avoid duplication; and services, programs, materials, and physical facilities which facilitate and encourage interest in books and which relate to reading. The minority recommended services, materials, and physical facilities which focus on unstructured recreational play; and services, programs, and materials which focus on formal teaching or testing in cognitive areas.

The history of day care licensing standards in Texas was traced from the beginnings in voluntary welfare organizations to the 1976 revisions. The jurisdictional foundations of day care licensing was presented in a summary of the related legislation passed in Texas during the years from 1848 to 1975. Categories of licensing requirements in the different sets of standards promulgated in Texas were compared. The attempt was made to derive a contextual milieu of social, political and educational factors which influenced Texas day care legislation and the development of licensing standards. It was recommended that funds are essential to adequate enforcement of licensing standards. In addition, to facilitate acculturation of day care licensing, consultation and training efforts should expand proportionately to the expansion of day care. The fact that issues related to specific requirements surfaced repeatedly in the different decades studied, a need for carefully controlled research to validate the individual requirements was indicated.

The purposes of this study were to determine if there are differences between the responses of abusive and nonabusive adults to potentially anger-provoking child behaviors; if there are differences between abusive and nonabusive adults; if there are differences between the children of abusive and nonabusive adults; and if there are combinations of these characteristics of the adults and characteristics of children as well as the behaviors of children which relate to child abusiveness in adults. The basic problem was to determine factors that help identify potentially child abusive adults. Certain factors, such as the limited size of the sample and the initial use of a new instrument, served as limitations to broad generalizations. However, based on the analysis of the data of this study, the following conclusions seem tenable 1. Certain behaviors of children are more upsetting to abusive adults than to nonabusive adults. 2. Characteristics of adults are not necessarily related to child abusiveness in adults. 3. The age of the child and the number of children living in the home are significantly related to child abusiveness in adults. 4. The findings indicate that a predictive model may be developed in conjunction with the Child Behavior Inventory for use …

This study investigated the impact of the years of teaching experience of classroom teachers on the achievement of third-grade students in inner-city Title I Schools; on the achievement of those third-grade students who were defined as high achievers, average achievers, and low achievers; and on the achievement of boys and girls in the third grade of inner-city Title I schools. An analysis and interpretation of the data revealed that there were no significant differences in reading and mathematics achievement of the third-grade students when the number of years of experience of the teacher was examined. Reading achievement of third-grade boys and third-grade girls did show significant differences. The more-experienced teacher appeared to have the greater increase in reading scores of the students. In addition to data concerning the hypotheses, information about other teacher variables was collected through a teacher self-report questionnaire. One hundred per cent of the teachers in the participating schools responded to the questionnaire. Data were tabulated by frequency of response in groups according to years of teacher experience. Variables included years of teaching experience in Title I schools, classroom size, and demographic data. Analysis of the data indicated that teachers having more years of experience in Title …

This study describes the developmental movement of kindergarten children from oral language toward written communication. The study describes and documents evidence of a sample of kindergarten children as they interact with print concepts in a kindergarten environment. The subjects were thirty kindergarten students randomly selected from three specific kindergartens identified as implementing the Key Vocabulary approach of Sylvia Ashton-Warner. The classrooms were public school kindergartens located in a suburban area of North Central Texas. From the findings several conclusions can be drawn. The learning of kindergarten children can be documented and a profile of that learning can be developed that will have possible future use in the learning career of the child. Kindergarten children may perceive the reading of a story to the group differently from the teacher. The perception of the process of writing by kindergarten children may be different from that of adults. There was evidence of children's writing in their movement from oral language toward print.

This study investigated the successful outcomes and practices, the problems and the system of evaluation of the Parent Involvement program of the Follow Through models. The purposes of this research were to describe parent involvement in Follow Through and to utilize these data to formulate an ideal parent involvement program for an early childhood center. One instrument, a questionnaire, was developed to collect the data. The questionnaire consisted of 37 items with two main sections on successful outcomes and practices, and problems in parent-child relationships, parent-school relationships, and in parent-community relationships, and evaluation of parent involvement. Findings reveal that parent involvement in Follow Through has been successful. Successful outcomes in parent-child relationships, successful outcomes in parent-school relationships, and successful outcomes were found in parent-community relationships.

This study explored the attitudes of four professional groups toward selected adult behaviors in order to gain an insight into their definitions of abuse and neglect. A sample was drawn from the population of pediatricians, psychologists, teachers, and social workers employed in a large metropolitan area of North Central Texas. A total of 190 subjects participated. The instrument used to quantify the attitudes of the respondents was a five-point rating scale, the ABTC Rating Scale. The rating scale was composed of thirty-six adult behaviors selected from the "gray areas" of child abuse and neglect. Participants rated the thirty-six behavior items according to how harmful they perceived each behavior to be for a five-to-six year old child. It was concluded that of the variables tested, those that appear to have the most influence on the differences in responses are professional membership and sex. It is possible that the differences found are due as much to the sex of the respondent as to professional membership. Teachers and females may react more strongly to the behaviors almost universally.

The purposes of this study are to examine the reported childrearing beliefs and practices of family day home caregivers, to examine the reported childrearing beliefs and practices of parents whose children are in a family day home, and to determine the congruency of the reported childrearing beliefs and practices between caregivers and parents. The childrearing beliefs and practices selected for the study are in the areas of discipline, sleeping, feeding-eating, toilet training, sex-role development, and selected home activities.

This study compared three groups of day care directors with regard to their levels of death anxiety and their responses to situations involving death that affect children in the day care center. In addition, the study compared the variables of age, years of experience in day care, parental status, and self-reported degree of religiosity with the directors' levels of death anxiety and their responses to simulated death situations. A possible relationship between the levels of death anxiety of the directors and their responses to simulated death situations was also investigated.

The purposes of this study were to identify the teaching concerns expressed in their early years of teaching by the graduates of the Early Childhood Education program in a church related teacher education institution, and to determine the relationship between teaching concerns and the variables of years of teaching experience and grade level taught.

This study investigates differences in academic achievement and self-concept of students enrolled in a traditional public school program and a public school Montessori program. The attitudes of parents of students are also compared. The population includes 182 experimental and control kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade students in a Texas metropolitan school district.

This study measured the resistance to temptation of five-year-old children as related to their sex, Sunday school attendance, and mothers' working status; analyzed the mothers' parenting attitudes as influenced by work, church attendance, and family structure; and examined relationships between children's resistance to temptation and mothers' parenting attitudes.

The purposes of this study were to determine the childrearing expectations of the Korean—American immigrant parents as measured on the five subsets of the Parent As A Teacher Inventory (PAAT), and to identify the influential factors within the Korean-American immigrant parents as a function of sex of child, family size, sex of parent, age of parent, education, income level, language, cultural aspects, accessibility, length of residence, and racial discrimination (independent variables). PAAT and the Parent Identification Questionnaire (PIQ) were administered to 118 Korean-American immigrant parents, 53 fathers and 65 mothers in North Texas. All subjects had children ages three through five and were natives of Korea. A multiple regression analysis was used to determine which independent variables would be the best predictors of parent expectations using PAAT subset scores and the total score as dependent variables: Creativity, Frustration, Control, Play, and Teaching-Learning; and eleven independent variables.

This study investigated the development of curiosity in young children. A previous study by Kreitler, Zigler, and Kreitler had identified five specific types of curiosity, manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. The basic problem was to describe the development of these five types of curiosity in three-, four-, and five-year-old children. A secondary problem was to determine if children follow a predictable pattern in their development of the five types of curiosity. Five tasks, measuring nineteen variables of curiosity, were administered individually to thirty three-year-olds, thirty four-year-olds, and thirty five-year-olds by a trained rater. Mean scores for each variable and each type of curiosity were calculated for each group.

The problem of this study was to describe, analyze, and compare the effects of learning centers and curricular themes upon the writing production of four children within a kindergarten classroom which followed the whole language approach. This study was conducted in a public school. Four subjects were identified from the administration of the Book Handling Knowledge Task. Using the qualitative research method of case studies, the teacher-researcher kept observational notes concerning the writing behavior of the subjects. The written compositions of the subjects were collected daily throughout the school year and were assigned a context, learning center and curricular theme. The compositions were then coded as to writing frequency, function, and form. The following findings resulted from the study: writing occurred most frequently in the art center followed by dramatic play, language, sand, science, social studies, "other," eyes and hands, mathematics, and library-listening; writing occurred most frequently during the curricular theme of Christmas followed by self-concept, shapes and colors, farm animals, Thanksgiving, Winter, transportation, nursery rhymes, patriotic, Valentine, food and nutrition, Halloween, Spring, wild animals, community helpers, gingerbread man, Summer, Easter, and pets; all five functions of language were used in the art center, four in the language, dramatic play, …