This study identified determinants existing within the academic environment of professional education faculty that influence the development and implementation of an information technology system to support their professional endeavors. Such a system would encourage these faculty to integrate technology into their curriculum and, consequently, produce teacher graduates who could employ information technology effectively in teaching. This study used a field survey research design with a mailed questionnaire. Both institutional and personal demographic factors were examined. The population exhibited a high level of homogeneity. This study indicated that ease of use, reliable operation, and capability to integrate technology into their personal work style were the most important concerns of faculty members. These factors reduce the emotional and intellectual costs of using technology.

The purpose of this research was to estimate (1) the extent to which institutional inbreeding is prevalent among mathematics faculty at colleges and universities throughout the United States; (2) the extent of institutional inbreeding among mathematics faculty at American colleges and universities classified according to institutional genre; (3) the extent of institutional inbreeding among mathematics faculty classified according to gender; and (4) the extent of institutional inbreeding among mathematics faculty in American colleges and universities classified according to regions of the country. Institutional inbreeding was defined as faculty employment at the institution from which one received the highest earned degree. An exhaustive review of the literature on inbreeding was used to develop this research. All public-supported and private-supported American universities that offer a doctorate in mathematics were identified by consulting the 1991 American Mathematical Society Professional Directory. Catalogs for the academic year 1991-1992 were requested from each institution. One-hundred sixty-seven institutions of higher education which offer the Ph.D. degree in mathematics and 5,961 faculty members were identified. The results of the analyses found a mean proportion of inbred mathematics faculty of 3.46 percent, which is one-tenth of the most recent study examining mathematics faculty. A chi-square goodness of fit test …

This study investigated job satisfaction/ dissatisfaction among business administration faculty at selected public Iranian universities. It also examined the relationship between faculty job satisfaction/ dissatisfaction and selected demographic and professional activity variables. Finally, the extrinsic and intrinsic factors associated with faculty job satisfaction were analyzed. It was also concluded that, despite a positive correlation of the intrinsic and the extrinsic factors, Herzberg's two-factor theory is a useful model in a faculty job satisfaction research. Furthermore, Hill's FJS was found to be reliable and valid for use in faculty job satisfaction studies in the colleges and universities in Iran.

This study aims to increase the level of knowledge about the gerontological knowledge of a sample of registered nurses by creating a portable and concise continuing education seminar that is based upon the fundamental components of the normal aging process. The impact on the learning outcomes of an accredited continuing education seminar that was developed for this study was analyzed. The continuing education seminar focused on some of the major areas of social gerontology pertinent to nursing. Although other variables (age, gender, educational level, and previous gerontological training) were analyzed, none were found to have significant effect on the level of knowledge.

The problem of this study involved identifying and ranking perceptions of the attributes of exemplary teaching of adjunct faculty of the Dallas County Community College District. Data was collected by a 75 item opinionnaire and a demographic data sheet which was sent to a population of 3,000 employees of the Dallas County Community College District and 100 exemplary faculty from 39 of the 50 United States. The five chapters were titled Introduction, Review of Literature, Methods, Presentation and Analysis of Findings, and Summary, Discussion, Conclusions, and Recommendations. Revealed through the findings of Chapter 4 was the order of attributes as a Grand grand rank found through the combining of the grand rank order of the Dallas County Community Colleges' employees and the rank order of the nationally recognized exemplary faculty. Findings disclosed that a rank ordering of items represented by Kendall's W at .9654 with a chi-square of 142.8815 at the .001 level of significance. These findings led to the rejection of three null hypotheses and the following related conclusions: (1) perceptions of importance of teaching attributes, can be rank ordered, (2) while a high level of significant values of W may be interpreted as meaning that the observers and …

This study examined the encoding accuracy and decoding accuracy of individual speakers and audience members as predictors of the accuracy with which public speaking anxiety is communicated during speech performance. Previous research revealed that audiences tend to underestimate the state anxiety of public speakers and that a low-to-moderate, positive correlation exists between speaker self-report and audience-observed state public speaking anxiety. Two divergent theoretical perspectives, differential information processing and emotional communication processes, were proposed as explanations for this phenomenon. Predictors for each perspective were estimated by Kenny's 1988 Social Relations Model (SRM). The study was conducted at a large metropolitan community college in the southwest region of the United States. Eighty subjects (40 males and 40 females) delivered two brief speeches before audiences of 20 fellow classmates. Immediately following each speech, speakers reported their state public speaking anxiety on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory A-State (STAI A-State). Audience members recorded their observations of speaker state anxiety on an audience version of the STAI A-State. Correlations between speaker self-report and audience-perceived state public speaking anxiety served as the estimate of judgment accuracy. The full SRM explained 65.7% of the variance in communication accuracy. Actor effects, the most powerful predictor of communication accuracy, accounted …

The purpose of this study was to compare two types of flyers used in the promotion of a recreational special event by a nonprofit agency. Informational and persuasive flyers were developed for an audience participation murder mystery play presented at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, Texas. Flyers were distributed throughout this military community. Only those individuals interested in attending a theatrical production registered for this program. A pretest and posttest were administered. Data were analyzed using Chi square goodness of fit tests, tests of proportions, and t-tests. Findings were: (a) persuasive flyers were more effective than the informational type in attracting potential patrons to register for an audience participation murder mystery play, (b) persuasive flyers were also more effective in attracting potential patrons to actually attend a murder mystery production, (c) however, persuasive flyers were not more effective in influencing the expectation or satisfaction of the patrons with the murder mystery production, and (d) neither type of flyer attracted patrons with any different demographic profiles who registered for or who attended this murder mystery production. In view of the findings of this study, the following recommendations for further study appear to be warranted: (a) further research on the …

This study was designed to investigate the current practice of continuing professional education in the library science departments of teachers colleges and universities in Thailand and the role of the library science department in continuing professional education for librarians. In order to accomplish this task, two questionnaires were developed and administered to 236 chairpersons and library school faculty of 31 tecahers colleges and 9 government universities. Of the returned questionnaires, 72.88% were usable. Data were analyzed using percentage and a contingency chi-square test. The major conclusion of the study was that while the library science departments of teachers college and universities in Thailand provide to some extent, all 20 continuing education items of the Association for Library and Information Science Education model, only two were identified as being provided by more than a majority of institutions.

This empirical study focused on the level of application of strategic planning by senior colleges and universities in Arkansas. The study was designed to examine, analyze, and describe the extent of strategic planning practices by Arkansas higher education institutions, as reflected in the opinions and perceptions of the institutions' chief executive officers and based on the profile of characteristics validated by twenty experts in the strategic planning literature.

The central purpose of this study was to compare the attitudes of faculty in applied sciences to the attitudes of faculty in liberal arts and other selected fields to determine if they differ significantly from each other in their perceptions of the effects of university-industry alliances on campus governance and operations. Secondary purposes were (a) to appraise the debate on alliances and the effects of alliances on academic values and (b) to contribute to the literature concerning alliances and their potential for improving higher education.

This study identified and compared characteristics in the career progression of African-American college presidents of institutions in the continental United States. The study was concerned with personal, educational and professional characteristics of these senior level administrators. From a population of 141 individuals, 73 presidents participated in this study. Frequencies, means, percentages, chi-square, crosstabulations and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed in the analysis of data. The level of significance was set at 0.05.

This study examines the association between the attitudes of students toward computers and their knowledge of the ethical uses of computers. The focus for this research was undergraduate students in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences (Department of Computer Science), Business and Education at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

The problem addressed in this study was to determine if a significant association exists between attributions and academic achievement among students in a program of religious training at a Bible college. The research was designed to ascertain if optimistic attributions are more frequently associated with students in programs of religious education than with students in a public state-supported university environment. No significant correlation was found between optimistic explanatory styles and the academic achievement of Bible college students. A significant positive difference was found to exist between the explanatory styles of students at The Criswell College and students at the University of North Texas. Students in religious courses of study tended toward attributions for negative events that were external, unstable, and specific. The University of North Texas students tended toward attributions for negative events that were internal, stable, and global.

This study explored the attitudes and perceptions of faculty members in Rajamangala Institute of Technology (RIT), Thailand. The purpose of this study was to (a) determine which demographic variables are associated with faculty members attitudes toward the implementation of computers in higher education in Thailand, and (b) determine perceptions among faculty members toward barriers to the widespread use of computers.

The major purpose of this study was to determine if pre-clinical medical school course examinations reflect critical thinking skills. The entire second year class from a medical school in the southwest made up the population. Student examination results from the first two years as well as scores on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal were used in this study.

This study proposed (a) to identify the most important attributes of effective college teachers as perceived by students in Taiwan, (b) to investigate the influence of different factors on students' perceived attributes of effective college teachers, and (c) to determine if the students in various Taiwanese teachers colleges differ in their opinions of the most important attributes of effective college teachers. Students identified these factors as attributes of effective college teachers: rapport, effective teaching methods, enthusiasm, fairness, interaction, practical experiences, personality, clarity, and being well-prepared. The fact that sophomore students and freshman students value some factors differently was discovered in this study. In addition, students who have previous teaching experience value all of the important attributes higher than those who do not have teaching experience before they attended teachers colleges.

The problem of this study concerns ethnoviolence on the campus of a predominantly white, state-supported university in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area. In order to study ethnoviolent behavior, the effects it has on the victims, and the perceptions that minority students have of the campus climate, all African-American, Hispanic, and international students enrolled at The University of Texas at Dallas were mailed a questionnaire.

This study sought to determine female college and university athletic directors' perceptions of position power according to selected job-related characteristics, through development and use of a nineteen-item survey instrument. The study was conducted during the 1991-1992 academic year and consisted of an initial study to determine content validity of the survey instrument, followed by construct validity and reliability determination utilizing a pilot study group of twenty female intercollegiate athletic directors.

The Federation of North Texas Area Universities was mandated by the Coordinating Board of the Texas College and University System on 3 December 1968, and this consortium was given legal empowerment by the Texas State Legislature. The three federated Universities--North Texas State University, Texas Woman's University and East Texas State University--developed a plan of cooperative action to maximize use of available resources, a plan which included sharing facilities and faculty as well as developing joint program offerings. At a time in history when educational institutions were obliged to maximize their resources, minimize their expenditure, and eliminate duplication, the consortium was an innovative approach to higher education as well as an interesting alternative to having degree programs cut and funding diminished.

This study examined the need for, and interest in, preretirement preparation programs for educators (teachers and administrators) in Nakorn Nayok Province, Thailand. All educators were between 46 and 60 years of age and were working in elementary and secondary schools in Nakorn Nayok Province, Thailand. The sample consisted of 333 teachers and 101 administrators. Data were collected by questionnaire survey. Of the returned questionnaires, 81.33% were usable. The results were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Results of the study show that elementary and secondary school teachers and administrators in Nakorn Nayok Province, Thailand, would benefit from preretirement preparation programs, but that few programs exist for educators. With all things taken into consideration, individual Thai educators have to be responsible for their retirement preparation knowledge, because the Ministry of Education does not consider preretirement preparation programs important enough to require that they be provided for educators.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of word processor use by foreign college writers and their attitudes toward writing, writing revision practices, writing quality, attitudes toward the use of computers, and time spent on computers. The results indicate that students' attitudes toward writing and their perceptions of computer usefulness significantly affected their writing quality. Students with more positive attitudes toward writing and the usefulness of computers tended to produce better quality writing. In addition, the findings indicate that students' writing revision practices significantly affected their attitudes toward writing. Students who revised their writing more frequently tended to have better attitudes toward writing than those who did not. In contrast, students' levels of computer anxiety, computer confidence, computer liking and their writing revision practices did not significantly affect the quality of their writing. Furthermore, the amount of time that students spent on computers did not significantly affect their attitudes toward using computers in writing.

The first purpose of this study was to identify the expectations of pre-student teachers, cooperating teachers, and college supervisors regarding early field experiences. A second purpose was to determine the respective roles of cooperating teachers and college supervisors for providing guidance of early field experiences. The third purpose was to determine alikenesses and differences among the respective participants' perceptions regarding early field experiences.

The study of leadership in education, business, industry, government, and other organizations has evolved over time. Early studies focused on leadership traits and behavior. Currently, researchers and theorists have concentrated on the interaction of leadership styles and situations. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the predominant leadership style of a group of senior administrators of public universities in Texas.

This study addresses an individual's performance, relating it to eyesight changes due to the aging of the individual and to color computer screens used for computer-based-instruction not designed specifically for older students. This study determines how existing research in gerontology, human-computer interface, and color use in visual graphics can be applied to the design of computer screen displays containing color text and backgrounds and how various color combinations will affect performance by adult learners forty years of age and older. The results of this research provide software developers and instructional designers guidelines to use when designing computer screen displays for use in instructional computing settings involving older adults.