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.

Effective relationships among the levels of educational administrators will support the emphasis on academic excellence at national, state, and local levels. Recognizing the factors involved and understanding the interactions of those factors is a complex process. This study examined the bureaucratic leadership style of a superintendent in the organizational structure and the social interaction between the superintendent and campus principals in that organization as perceived by the principals. Quantitative data were collected by using two instruments: (1) the Administration Organi zationa1 Inventory to define the superintendent's bureaucratic leadership style and (2) the Perceived Social Interaction Questionnaire to determine the degree of social interaction between the superintendent and the campus principals. The study included the superintendent and the forty-three principals of a Texas suburban public school. Data analysis examined the leadership style and its relationship to the social interaction and both style and social interaction in relationship to age, sex, elementary or secondary level, and years of experience as a principal. Results of the study did not clearly define the superintendent's leadership style in a bureaucratic organization and indicated no significant difference between the style and social interaction and the four biographical variables. However, analysis of the data revealed that more …

The purpose of this study was to identify childrearing attitudes of Mexican-American mothers with children ages three to five years of age. Specifically the first purpose of this study was to determine childrearing attitudes of Mexican-American mothers with ten years of education or fewer and Mexican-American mothers with eleven years of education or more as identified by the Parent As A Teacher Inventory (PAAT). The second purpose was to identify the relationship of the following demographic variables to childrearing attitudes: mother's age, mother's marital status, family income, sex of child, age of child, access to child, generational status, mother's language and mother's ethnicity. The PAAT and the Parent Information Questionnaire were administered to 112 Mexican-American mothers; 54 Mexican- American mothers with ten years of education or fewer and 58 Mexican-American mothers with eleven years of education or more. The population from which these subjects were drawn were mothers from Mexican-American communities in a North Texas county. Responses on the sample were analyzed using multivariate statistics. Based on the analysis of the data, the following conclusions seem tenable. 1. The Mexican-American mothers with eleven years of education or more have childrearing attitudes which are more positive than the Mexican-American mothers with …

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is the description of the social map that is presented to the viewers of public television. Using content analysis methodology, the study describes how different genders, racial groups, and age groups are being portrayed on PBS programming. The sample consisted of one week of PBS 1984 fall programming broadcast on KERA-TV, the PBS station in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas. Research questions addressing proportions of groups, types of roles, length of scenes, occupational variation, conversational behaviors, conflict management modes, and cultural norms were answered. All coding was accomplished by the principal investigator. Upon completion of the coding sub-totals for the variables under study by program types and a grand total for the entire sample were then tabulated. After this extensive content analysis, the report concludes that females are still extremely underrepresented in PBS programming, accounting for only 32.7% of the total participants. Blacks and Hispanics are also underrepresented except in children's programming. Occupational variation for white males is evident for all types of PBS programming. Occupational variation for white females is evident in children's programming and informational/documentary programming. Minorities with delineated occupations are extremely limited in all types of programming except for children's programming. …

The problem of this study was first year student retention at a private university. The purpose of the study was to identify high risk students (dropout prone) by use of the Stratil Counseling Inventory -_ College Form (SCI-C) in order to initiate early intervention counseling and advising. Intrusive counseling was started within the first six weeks of the 1984 fall semester to facilitate the students' transition to college. The population of the study was first-time full-time freshmen students in attendance at Freshmen Orientation the week prior to the beginning of the 1984 academic year. SCI-C instrument consisted of six scales designed to elicit attrition-related information about the firsttime, freshmen students. The scales identified students who were in need of assistance, and they provided a profile of their problem areas. This information, available within ten days after the beginning of classes enabled Student Development personnel to select the students out of the freshman class who needed help and to refer them to university resources for assistance. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of the SCI-C data were: (1) students who needed assistance to integrate into the academic and social envrionment of the university were identified by the SCI-C; (2) students at …

The purpose of this study was to compare student scores on geographic skills in the experimental group with student scores on geographic skills in the control group after adjustment was made in teaching methods and learning materials for verbal and spatial ability for students in the experimental group. Hypotheses tested at the .05 level were as follows. 1. Females would score higher than males on a criterion measure of verbal ability. 2. Males would score higher than females on a criterion measure of spatial ability. 3. Experimental/verbal students would score higher on a geography skills posttest. 4. Experimental/spatial students would score higher on a geography skills posttest. 5. The experimental group would score higher than the control group on a geography skills posttest. The sample was 150 high school United States History students in a medium-sized North Texas school district. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze results of the study of six classes after fifteen days of instruction in physical geography concepts. Experimental classes received geographic instruction directed to verbal and spatial abilities; control group classes received traditional geographic instruction which utilized textbook, lecture, and whole-group instruction. Three high schools participated in the study. Conclusions were that males and …

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 …

Universities in many industrialized countries including Japan, and Australia, have enabled those countries to achieve rapid economic and social advancement. However, this is untrue for the universities of Ghana, due to the country's ailing economy, its continued dependence on foreign manpower, aid, and material goods. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to illuminate the major factors and events that have controlled and inhibited the development of higher education in Ghana from 1948 to 1984. The method of acquiring data involved a computer and manual search for documents from 1) ERIC Database, 2) libraries , and 3) Embassy of Ghana, Washington, D.C. The findings include (1) Establishment of universities on the basis of the Asquith Doctrine; (2) Imitation of British universities' curriculum, constitution, standards and social functions; (3) Characterization of universities by elitism, lack of diversity and adaptation, autonomy, excellence and narrow specialism in their honor degree programs; (4) Emphasis on cognitive rather than psychomotor learning; (5) Matriculation of inadequately qualified secondary school science students; (6) Absence of a nationally formulated statement of manpower needs, goals, and effective long-term planning; (7) Financial exigencies; (8) Suppression, perversion and abuse of academic and intellectual freedom by the government and universities; (9) Inconsistent …

The impact of a mandatory Part 48 training program on the health and safety knowledge level of newly employed inexperienced miners in Texas was studied. Part 48 training was defined by compliance with Mine Safety and Health Administration's (MSHA) mandatory health and safety training requirements. A two-group pretest, posttest research design was utilized. Group one individuals were newly employed inexperienced persons who received mandatory Part 48 training in accordance with MSHA guidelines. Group two subjects were newly employed inexperienced persons who worked for companies that were exempt from conducting a Part 48 training program. MSHA's health and safety knowledge inventory was utilized. A significant difference was found in the health and safety training program when compared with individuals who did not receive the training . A significant difference was also found in the posttest scores for eight of the ten subject areas of the MSHA health and safety knowledge inventory for persons who completed a Part 48 training program when compared to persons who did not receive the training . Analysis of gain scores resulted in significant differences in the same subject areas indicated by posttest scores. It was concluded that MSHA Part 48 did have a significant impact on …

This study was conceived as an attempt to determine .and analyze factors deterring participation in continuing professional education among social workers in environments where continuing education for relicensure is mandatory and voluntary. The specific research design implemented to complete this study was the ex-post facto descriptive design. The sample included 106 social workers randomly selected in the state of Texas where continuing education is mandatory and 94 social workers in the state of Louisiana where continuing education is voluntary. The instrument used was the Deterrent to Participation Scale developed by Scanlan (1983) and a demographic inventory. Scanlan (1983) earlier identified six factors deterring participation in continuing professional education: Disengagement, Lack of Quality, Family Constraints, Cost, Lack of Benefit, and Work Constraints. The study concluded that social workers in both states considered work constraint as a major factor deterring participation in continuing professional education. Also the factors of cost and lack of quality were also considered as crucial barriers in their efforts to participate in continuing professional education. The Wilks' multivariate test of significance of the means and univariate F tests at alpha level p < .05 revealed differences in the combined mean scores of social workers in both states when …

In a three stage investigation the relationship between personality type and the use of learning as a coping device during the life transitions of adults was studied. Based on the assumption that a paper and pencil device could be constructed to achieve the same or nearly the same results that have been achieved through interviews with adult learners, the first two stages of this investigation involved the construction and validation of an instrument, the Adult Development Learning Inventory (ADLI), to measure the use of learning during life transitions of adults. The inventory has five subsections: a demographic profile, Life Events, Coping Strategies, Learning Activities, and Adulthood Tasks. Content validity of the ADLI was established through both the theory based in adult learning and developmental psychology and the panel of experts. Construct validation tools included principal component factor analysis and the Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA with age as the variable of discrimination. The instrument was capable of differentiating among age groups' perception of the tasks in the adult life cycle. For internal consistency, reliability estimates ranged from .83 to .94 for the subsections of the ADLI. Stage III of the investigation explored the relationship between the ADLI and personality as measured by the …

The problem of this study was to determine the differences in experimentwise and comparisonwise Type I error rate among six multiple comparison procedures when applied to twenty-eight combinations of normally distributed data. These were the Least Significant Difference, the Fisher-protected Least Significant Difference, the Student Newman-Keuls Test, the Duncan Multiple Range Test, the Tukey Honestly Significant Difference, and the Scheffe Significant Difference. The Spjøtvoll-Stoline and Tukey—Kramer HSD modifications were used for unequal n conditions. A Monte Carlo simulation was used for twenty-eight combinations of k and n. The scores were normally distributed (µ=100; σ=10). Specified multiple comparison procedures were applied under two conditions: (a) all experiments and (b) experiments in which the F-ratio was significant (0.05). Error counts were maintained over 1000 repetitions. The FLSD held experimentwise Type I error rate to nominal alpha for the complete null hypothesis. The FLSD was more sensitive to sample mean differences than the HSD while protecting against experimentwise error. The unprotected LSD was the only procedure to yield comparisonwise Type I error rate at nominal alpha. The SNK and MRT error rates fell between the FLSD and HSD rates. The SSD error rate was the most conservative. Use of the harmonic mean of …

Many engineers perform managerial roles; however, their professional education in engineering usually does not include management education. Thus, this study examined the participation of the Nigerian licensed engineers in professional development activities in management. The study proposed (1) to determine if, in fact, Nigerian licensed engineers participate in management education and training; (2) to determine the management programs in which the engineers participated and whether participation was voluntary or required, or within Nigeria or overseas; (3) to test hypotheses dealing with these variables: age, management level, academic level, years of experience in a managerial role, and sector of employment; and (4) to identify the mean number of hours of participation. Also, the engineers were asked to judge the value of non-credit versus credit programs.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the prevalence of specific learning disabilities in school-aged hearing impaired children based on the proposed theoretical definition of the National Joint Committee for Learning Disabilities (1981) and the theoretical definition constructed by the Canadian Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities (1981). The operationalization of these theoretical definitions, coupled with the current operational definition issued by the Texas Education Agency (1983), formulated the investigative framework.

This study focuses on the problems of international students as perceived by both international students and faculty in a public university. The major purposes of the study are to determine if there are significant differences in perceptions of the problems of international students between international students and faculty members, between groups of international students, and between groups of faculty members. A modification of an international student problem inventory instrument was used to collect data from 371 international students and 316 faculty members. Thirteen hypotheses were tested using frequency and percentages, analysis of variance, multivariate analysis of variance, and univariate analysis of variance, as required according to the data collected and the hypothesis being tested.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether application forms used in Texas public schools for teachers and administrators were in compliance with federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Texas Human Rights Commission Act (THRCA) regulations regarding preemployment practices. Participating in the study were 740 public school districts in Texas. The study also attempted to determine if these application forms are in violation of EEOC regulations pertaining to pre-employment practices and whether classification based on the districts' size, wealth, student ethnicity and geographical location has a bearing on the degree of compliance with and awareness of EEOC and THRCA regulations. A model employment application form and set of guidelines were developed for school districts to use in securing pre-employment information. Inferential statistics were used through various applicable designs. Three different types of analysis were utilized. These were a Descriptive Analysis, a Goodman- Kruskal Gamma (y) Coefficient—chi-square analysis and a Multiple Regression analysis. The descriptive analysis included the calculation of percentages of the suspect questions appearing on teacher and administrator application forms utilizing the Criteria Used to Determine EEO Compliance and Awareness Among Texas School Districts. The Goodman-Kruskal Gamma (y) Coefficient and the chi-square analysis were employed in order …

Using a case study approach, this investigation focused on the nature of the relationship between computer related expenditures and student achievement in mathematics, with consideration given to the mediating factors influencing the relationship. Some of these factors included the types of computers and software being used, the objectives of computer instruction, teacher preparation in the use of the computer as an instructional tool, the amount of time individual students had access to a computer during the school year, and the socioeconomic status of pupils. Two of the twenty-five largest school districts in Texas were selected as the subjects for this study. Numerical data were collected from existing documents including general ledgers, bid tabulations, test score tables, and records showing the numbers of students participating in the free and reduced price lunch programs. Specific information regarding the implementations of the instructional programs was gathered through observations and 2 interviews with principals/ teachers, and students in four— teen junior high schools in each of the two school district. The districts exhibited more differences than similarities in the approaches to using computers for instruction in mathematics. One district, for about two hundred dollars per student, purchased a prepared, copyrighted, and patented program consisting …

This study examined the contribution of several variables to the prediction of perceived freedom in leisure (PFL) and life satisfaction in older adults. Demographic, health and socioeconomic variables were compared with participation in recreation programs, church involvement and PFL. Church involvement was viewed as a leisure activity rather than a measure of religiosity. The survey instrument incorporated all these variables and was pretested and revised before use in the study. The sample consisted of 198 persons 60 years of age and older who were members of two Southern Baptist churches. Subjects were randomly selected, but persons considered by church staff members to be incapable of completing the survey were eliminated. Surveys were hand delivered and picked up by volunteer workers, and a 38 percent return rate was obtained. Alpha reliability for the church involvement, PFL and life satisfaction scales in the instrument were .87, .94, and .77, respectively. Frequency counts and percentages or means and standard deviations were calculated for the demographic variables. Subjects were categorized by level of involvement in church and community recreation programs. Persons involved in community but not church recreation programs were underrepresented in the sample. A selective sampling procedure was utilized to obtain more respondents …

The purposes of this study were to determine 1) the tasks that the Nigerian university vice-chancellor should perform personally, 2) the functions that the vice-chancellor should delegate to other university staff to achieve effective administration, 3) the factors that should be considered in the selection of a vice-chancellor, and 4) the criteria that should be considered in the evaluation of the vice-chancellor's job performance effectiveness. Chapter 1 includes a statement of the problem, purposes, research questions, background, significance of the study, definition of terms, limitations of the study, and basic assumptions. Chapter II is a review of related literature, and Chapter III presents information on the procedure followed in the collection and treatment of data. The analysis and evaluation of the findings are presented in Chapter IV; and the summary, findings, implications, and recommendations of the study are presented in Chapter V.

Stress is being linked increasingly to physiological, psychological, sociological, and educational problems. However, scant attention has been given to stress in recent reading research. This study investigated referral and evaluation statements and diagnostic data from parents, teachers, reading specialists, and counselors regarding signs of stress and potential stressors as factors in the reading difficulties of seventy-seven primary schoolchildren referred for evaluation at the pupil Appraisal Center (PAC) at North Texas State University between 1977 and 1984. Qualitative methods, specifically situational analysis, were employed to obtain a holistic view of each subject's reading difficulties. The researcher collected data from documented files at PAC. Data analysis via a categorical coding system produced thirty-nine stress related categories, organized under broad headings of family and school environment, readiness for reading/ learning, general stress reactions, and responses to stress when reading/learning becomes a problem.

The study focused on the student service related problems of culturally distinct groups of students attending a community college. The groups selected for the study were sixty international students and sixty English as a Second Language students. The researcher administered the Michigan International Student Problem Inventory, an instrument which has been widely used to indicate foreign students' problems. Combining the use of naturalistic research methodology, the researcher utilized an indepth interview to document the problems they were facing. Patterns and trends among the problems were analyzed and reported. The results indicated that many international students experienced concerns in the area of financial aid, had difficulties with some of the immigration regulations and work restrictions, and experienced forms of racial and social discrimination. The English as a Second Language students tended to experience most difficulties in the area of English language functioning but also experienced problems related to academic functioning and making friends. The student service areas most closely related to the international students' concerns were Financial Aids, Admissions, Placement, Counseling, and English Language Services. English as a Second Language students' problems were most closely related to the areas of English Language Services, Admissions, Counseling, and Academic Advisement. Recommendations generated by …

The purposes of this study were to analyze (1) the changes over time in the state anxiety level of children in a computer-assisted program of reading instruction and in classroom reading instruction, (2) the changes in state anxiety patterns as related to gender, achievement level, and ethnicity, and (3) the difference in anxiety levels of the students while in computer-assisted reading instruction and classroom reading instruction.

The focus of this study was to determine the unique contribution of I.Q., gender, instructional organization, time on the computer, classroom instructional time, ethnicity and total instructional time to the predictability of achievement gain in a computer-assisted instructional setting in reading. The sample consisted of 2,000 students in grades three and five from a large suburban school district in the Dallas - Fort Worth area. The students were given the Iowa Test of Basic Skills to determine reading achievement gains and the Cognitive Abilities Test to determine I.Q. levels. The study was conducted over a five month period during the 1984 - 1985 school year. Using multiple regression, the data were analyzed.

This investigation studied the impact of male student involvement in selected school activities upon grade-point averages, rates of attendance and college entrance examination scores. The main purpose of this study was to provide data for state officials, school administrators, and school boards as they seek to make decisions concerning the activities program and its place in the educational system. The specific purpose was to determine if involvement in selected school activities had any relationship to the variables grade-point average, attendance, and scores on college entrance examinations. The study was carried out in four large Texas high schools with a total student population of 6,456. Male participants in seven major school activities were randomly selected. This process produced a total sample of 280 male students representing participation in seven activities in four high schools. Each activity was represented by a sample of forty male students. The conclusions were drawn that (1) there is a positive relationship between participation in the activities program by male students and attendance rate, grade-point average, and scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and (2) there was no negative relationship between participation in the activities program and the participants' ability to receive a high school education.