This ethnographic, descriptive case study is concerned with an analysis of the Elderhostel experience at one specific university. Questionnaires, evaluation documents, observations, phototographs, and interviews were used in this study to describe the 1988 Elderhostel experience at North Texas State University. Thirty-three persons were initially asked to participate in this study. Twenty-nine agreed and actually completed the questionnaires, and 26 completed the program evaluation. The study is organized and presented in the following manner: Chapter I introduces the study. Chapter II presents a review of related literature addressing those studies directly concerned with the Elderhostel experience, those addressing motivational reasons for participation in adult education, and those dealing with learning abilities, interests, and goals of the elderly in general. Chapter III includes the methods and procedures used to collect and analyze the data. Chapter IV presents the descriptive and statistical analysis of the data, and Chapter V includes the summary, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations that were derived from the analysis. Major findings of this study include a description of the organization and administration of the program, a description of the educational and co-curricular activities offered and how they were evaluated by the participants, and demographic and motivational data of the …

The purpose of this study is to identify which characteristics of student-athletes are most helpful in making administrative decisions about intercollegiate athletic programs, and then to develop a descriptive profile of a group of student-athletes at a particular university. Additional purposes include comparing these descriptive data with other group data and with perceptions of the same group of student-athletes by faculty administrators at the same university. Data were collected in four phases. First, a jury of three experts developed a list of student-athlete characteristics they believed to be helpful in making administrative decisions regarding those athletes. Next, information was gathered to develop a descriptive profile of a selected group of eighteen student-athletes based on the identified characteristics. Next, statistical comparisons were made with available data from other groups of students and from the eight Athletic Council members' perceptions of the study group. Major findings include the identification of useful characteristics, inconsistencies between student-athlete high school ranks in class and SAT scores, high scores in hostility, and accurate perceptions of student-athletes by Athletic Council members.

The West Indies College is an institution of higher education in Jamaica which was established by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in 1909. It has had three names: 1909-1923, West Indian Training School; 1924-1958, West Indian Training College, and 1959-present, West Indies College. The school has been served by over 20 presidents. The needs of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, the Mandeville community, Jamaica, and the West Indies region continue to play an important role in the addition and elimination of academic programs at the college. Present programs have attracted students from Africa, North and South America, the West Indies, and Europe. The college has industries that are used as facilities to provide the work-study program for students to fulfill the college's operational philosophy of educating the entire person. The industries assist students in the development of manual skills and in the payment of tuition. The West Indies College is funded by grants of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, tuition fees, profits from industries, and individual contributions. The school also receives a financial advantage in the form of tax exemption from the Jamaican government. An organized Department of Alumni Affairs assists the college in moral, professional, and material support. Due to the generosity …

The problem addressed in this study is the administrative process and criteria used by nonprofit visual arts organizations in the State of Texas in acquiring government and private funding. The purposes of the study were to examine the organization and administrative process of the nonprofit visual arts organization, to determine the criteria utilized by government and private funding sources for distribution of funds to nonprofit visual arts organizations, and to examine the process used by nonprofit visual arts organizations when acquiring funds from government and private sources. The data were obtained by means of a descriptive survey questionnaire which was mailed to 336 selected nonprofit visual arts organizations in the State of Texas. These organizations represent the following six areas of visual art: foundations, galleries, museums, associations, photography, and schools. From these areas the population was further refined to include only museums and associations, which represent the extreme diversity of administrative processes used. The resulting subpopulation was comprised of forty-six organizations which had filed for grants from the Texas Commission on the Arts within the past three years. Thirty research questions were answered from the results of the questionnaire. Research questions one, and three through thirty were analyzed and presented …

This study examines the effects of the computer-assisted text analysis program, WRITER'S WORKBENCH, on writing performance, levels of writing apprehension, students' writing processes and attitudes about using the computer and WORKBENCH for writing. A sample of 275 subjects enrolled in freshman composition were divided into an experimental group (N = 200) who used WORKBENCH in a mandatory computer lab component in addition to their composition course and a control group (N = 75) who received only the course, itself. Because random selection of participants was not possible, a Nonequivalent Control Group design was utilized. Holistic scoring of pre and posttest essays revealed a significant improvement in writing among both groups as a result of the treatments, but there was no significant difference in writing gains between the group using WORKBENCH and the group who did not (p = .942) . Similarly, though both groups demonstrated a small decrease in writing apprehension after instruction, there was no significant difference in the degree of decrease between the two groups (p = .201). Also, the data did not support a relationship between writing performance and apprehension. A 40 item questionnaire was given to the experimental group to determine: 1) attitudes about writing with …

Dr. W. A. Criswell is the well known pastor of the twenty-seven thousand member historic First Baptist Church in downtown Dallas, Texas. He has held the position for the past forty-three years. Until now no one has attempted an in-depth study of Criswell's educational contributions to the First Baptist Church (which have also been adopted into the Southern Baptist denomination, America's largest Protestant religious organization). Although Criswell has been the Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas for many years, this was by no means his introduction to the pastorate. In 1928 he was ordained as a seventeen year old minister of the gospel in Amarillo, Texas. He has been a pastor for over sixty years. Criswell has made a lasting impact on the church staff, school staff (Criswell College and First Baptist Academy), students in those schools, the Southern Baptist denomination and also the city of Dallas. He has been one of the key figures in evangelical national movements. Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Senators, and Governors are no strangers to a Sunday morning service held in the large sanctuary in downtown Dallas. Much of the research for this project originated from the Oral Memoirs of W. A. Criswell. a …

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of academic advising needs by faculty advisors and students at Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok, Thailand, using the Academic Advising Needs Questionnaire developed by Thomas H. Burke. The assessment is based on age, sex, education level, academic rank, years of advising, and number of advisees. The questionnaire consisted of 15 items, using a four-point rating scale. The population consisted of a total of 280 faculty members and 700 resident students at all seven faculties at Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 230 faculty members or 82.14 percent of the sampling and a total of 561 students or 80.14 percent of the sampling participated in this study. The t-test, Spearman s Coefficient of Rank Correlation, and Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance W were used in the follow-up assessment, with the level of significance at .05. Data were collected by means of two Academic Advising Needs Questionnaires for this study. Questionnaires were distributed to faculty advisors and students. While students revealed some degree of need in all advising areas, the five highest ranked items were: (1) serve as a student's personal reference for prospective employers and/or graduate goals, (2) assist students in obtaining part-time …

Because it is representative of other Southern Baptist seminaries and distinguished by a vigorous graduate program, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) was chosen as the institution from which the population was taken. The study, conducted in 1984, collected data about women graduates of SWBTS for the years 1975, 1978, and 1981, with the following purposes: (1) to develop a profile of women who choose seminary education as an avenue of career preparation; (2) to determine the degree of influence of significant others --individuals in the family, school, peer group, and the church -- on women pursuing graduate education in order to prepare for ministry vocations. Among the findings of the study are these observations: 1. Despite a consistently supportive role from church pastors about respondents' career choices before, during, and after seminary, few seminary graduates encountered clergywomen as role models, or received material support from their home churches, and many encountered gender bias and discrimination as they sought ministry-related careers throughout their educational careers and afterwards. 2. The most desired career choices expressed by respondents include missionary, age group minister, counselor, minister of education, and college or seminary teacher. 3. The least desired career choices of respondents include minister of …