A major change being advocated in education is that of making students more self-directing; that is, helping them become more responsible for their own learning. The focus of this investigation was on fifth grade students' use of self-directed learning strategies and self-directed perceptual skills. An experimental study was conducted using the nested design for analyzing data obtained from the Guglielmino Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale, the Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons1 Self-Regulated Learning Interview Schedule, and the Bradley-Lane Self-Directing Perceptual Scale. One hundred fifty-two fifth graders were involved in the eight week study along with their six teachers. Both students and teachers were immersed in a module of training that included emphasis upon self-directing behaviors and learning strategies. Two striking findings emerged; namely, (a) in comparing the average number of learning strategies acquired after treatment, the experimental group (low, middle, and high IQ levels) scored 40%, 50% and 29% higher respectively, than did the control group; (b) in comparing the fifth grade students use of learning strategies it was found that most students nearly doubled the number of learning strategies they had previously acquired. Thus, it was concluded that children who do not have actual teaching of information or data concerning learning strategies …

The problem of this study was to identify some concerns of Korean kindergarten teachers at different points in their careers, based on the conceptual framework of Katz's (1972, 1977, 1985) theory of preschool teacher development. This study also described the variations in these concerns on the basis of some teacher characteristics including teaching experience, certification, educational background, inservice training, and teaching assignment. The subjects for this study were 174 volunteers who were Korean kindergarten teachers in Seoul, Korea. The concerns of the teachers were expressed through the Kindergarten Teacher Concerns Questionnaire, consisting of two parts: (a) background information, and (b) the Kindergarten Teacher Concern Rating Scale (KTCRS), consisting of a list of 54 items developed by Tsai (1990), reflecting the four areas of concerns—Survival, Consolidation, Renewal, and Maturity—formulated by Katz. A Likert type 5-point scale indicating the degree of concerns was used in the questionnaire as the scoring system. The following conclusions were drawn from this study: 1. The concerns of the Korean kindergarten teachers were developmental in nature in terms of preoccupation with a specific area of concerns at different points in the teachers' careers. This result tended to follow a sequence of stages as posited by Katz (1972, …

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 purposes of this study were to compare the childrearing attitudes of church-related Korean American immigrant parents and Korean parents as measured by the Parent As A Teacher Inventory (PAAT), and to identify relationships between the PAAT childrearing subsets and demographic variables including sex of child, sex of parent, education of parent, family income level, maternal employment, accessibility to the child, language of parent, and length of residence in America.

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.