districts. Finally, the changes produced in community and neighborhood social structure and processes will be assessed by socioeconomic status scores of the families in the study, socioeconomic service patterns of families in the study, and the amount of service provided by the village center to the farm service area. BURTON W. KREITLOW, professor of education and agricultural and extension education, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Project 1318. Duration: 3 years. Aug. 1961 to July 1964. Optimal Scheduling in Educational Institutions Problem. To explore the use of electronic computers for developing schedules for academic institutions. Objectives. To develop a scheduling system for students, faculty, and facilities which will have a widespread application in universities, colleges, and high schools. Procedures.-Mathematical models will be developed to adhere to the criteria and logic inherent in the generation of time schedules for educational institutions. An assignment algorithm will be formulated to consider the many factors that have a bearing on the effectiveness of criteria to evaluate schedules. A digital computer will be used to simulate the effectiveness of student scheduling, facilities planning, faculty utilization, and other criteria applicable to scheduling evaluation. Finally, a unified system of scheduling will be developed and translated into a universal-language, digital computer program which will be structured to facilitate its use in individual institutions. W. R. TURKES, associate dean, Schools of Engineering and Mines, and chairman, industrial engineer department, and ALBERT G. HOLZMAN, associate chairman, and professor of industrial engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. Project 1323. Duration: 2 years. Role Expectations and Perceptions of School Principals Problem.-To define a research design and to develop instruments for obtaining data concerning the role expectations and perceptions of school principals. Objective.—(1) To discover disparities between the expectations and perceptions attributed to persons and groups and the actual expectations and perceptions of these persons and groups; and (2) to determine whether the verbalized perceptions and expectations of principals and others remain consistent over a period of time. Procedures. The sample for this study will consist of the elementary, junior high, and senior high school principals, the superintendents, and a random sample of teachers in selected school systems in Oklahoma. During this first year of what is conceived of as a longrange project, an examination will be made of conceptual frameworks and of previous research and workshop findings. Further, an intensive study will be made, using opinionnaire and interviewing instruments, to discover significant patterns of relationships among (a) habitual cognitive constructs of school principals, (b) the expectations and perceptions that school principals and the occupants of related positions hold regarding the role of the principal and the roles of the occupants of other positions, (c) attributed expectations and perceptions regarding the role of the principal, and (d) the morale and value orientations of school principals and other professional school employees. The instruments will be administered twice to obtain a measure of consistency. ROBERT E. SWEITZER, associate professor of education, Oklahoma State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, Stillwater. Project 1329. Duration: 12 months. Legal Problems in the Administration of Education by Educational and Noneducational Government Agencies Problem. To investigate the extent and nature of the administrative controls of educational activities exercised by noneducational agencies of government and the legal relationships between these governmental agencies and the educational authorities whose chief responsibility is to operate schools. Objectives.-(1) To investigate the relationships between educational agencies and noneducational agencies of government having authority to administer aspects of the total educational enterprise at State and local levels, (2) to investigate the scope of noneducational agencies of government to approve, modify, veto, or otherwise restrain action of educational agencies, and (3) to describe the effects of any of these actions upon actual school operation where these can be identified. Procedures. This research includes four phases which will be carried on concurrently. One phase is the identification of agencies of State and local government from legal sources and from legal sections of State departments of education in each of the 50 States. Another is the collection and analysis of legal and other related data bearing on the problem. A third phase includes interviewing of officials in nongovernmental agencies, State departments of education, or representative school systems, to clarify uncertainties or confirm conclusions. Afourth phase is the consultation of knowledgeable persons in the area of the study, such as school attorneys, law professors, or professors of educational administration. LLOYD MCCANN, professor of education, Project 1359. Duration: 2 years. Sept. 1961 to Aug. 1963. Effect of School Building Environment on Personnel Interactions and Attitudes Problem. To utilize data obtained in a previous project (918) to explore the effect of school building environment on personnel interactions and attitudes. Objective. To determine the relationships between (1) ecological factors and patterns of interaction when factors of enclosure are controlled, (2) patterns of interaction and attitude factors when factors of ecology are controlled, (3) attitude factors and type of enclosures when factors of interaction are controlled, and (4) factors of enclosure and student ecology when factors of attitude are controlled. Procedures.-The data from the inventories of the 32,000 high school students who were a part of project 918 will be tabulated and key-punched for machine summarization. From this data base, students will be distributed into a 128-cell matrix containing dichotomized factors of sex, grade level, years in school, socioeconomic index, and IQ. Within this matrix, both frequency of interaction and foci of interaction variables will be examined. Chi-square and analysis of variance formulae will be applied as appropriate. The second step will be to distribute the students into high-low groups according to frequency of interaction and to examine the resulting 256-cell matrix for attitude factors (attitudes toward classroom and building, toward self and peers, toward the social environment of the school). Finally, students will be distributed into four self-other acceptance groups with ecological factors and frequency of interaction controlled and the resulting 1024-cell matrix will be examined for types of building enclosures represented (compact vs. campus type and subject-matter organization vs. school-within-school organization). KARL T. HEREFORD, associate professor, administrative and educational services, College of Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing. Project 1443. Duration: 6 months, 1 week. Federal contribution: $10,120. RESEARCH ON: II. CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNERS The Effects of Group Counseling on School Adjustment of Underachieving Junior High School Boys Who Demonstrate Acting-Out Behavior Problem. This study is an integral part of a long-range project designed to investigate the application of group counseling to underachieving pupils who possess varying levels of learning potential and behavioral characteristics. Objectives. (1) To demonstrate the effect of group counseling on underachieving junior high school boys who demonstrate acting-out behavior, (2) to determine teachers' attitudes toward this type of student and change in teacher attitudes as a result of discussion groups and counseling sessions. Procedures. The sample will be taken from three schools in similar socioeconomic areas. It will include about 96 pupils who have demonstrated acting-out behavior according to teacher observations and who have an Accomplishment Quotient of less than the mean quotient for the boys in the sample. They will be divided into two experimental and two control groups at each school. Both counseling groups and the teacher discussion groups will be conducted by the same counselors; however, a different counselor will be responsible for each school. Appropriate evaluative devices will be administered to students before and after counseling. In addition, the teachers' attitudes will be evaluated by several instruments before the teacher discussion groups begin and after the last sessions are concluded. Appropriate statistical techniques will be used for analyzing the data. C. C. DUNSMOOR and BENJAMIN COHN, Project D-040. Duration: 2 years. October 1961 to October 1963. A Study of Statistical Models for the Evaluation and Interpretation of Educational Criteria Problem.-(1) To construct a model for the analysis of contingency tables, (2) to determine which of various ordering principles in Step 15 Down-Analysis is most appropriate for the qualitative interpretation of statistical results, and (3) to develop statistical tests to interpret the results. Objectives. (1) To study models suitable for the analysis of qualitative data available in the form of multidimensional contingency tables; (2) to develop statistical methods of analysis, especially for the study of associations among traits; (3) to study various methods of ordering criterion variables or combinations of criterion variables; (4) to develop statistical methods designed to facilitate interpretation of results based upon such order of criterion variables; (5) to study models designed for the analysis of subject-test interactions; (6) to develop statistical methods for the identification of such models and for the testing of appropriate hypotheses connected with these models; (7) to present all proposed statistical methods in such a form that research workers with no more than basic training in statistics can use them; (8) to develop such computational and electronic machine programs as may be desirable to facilitate analysis of studies of this type; (9) to apply such methods to the analysis of educational experiment data now available to us; and (10) to suggest further application of results to educational research studies now in progress. Procedures. In the first of three phases, general concepts of partial correlation and partial association will be studied, especially with a view to finding parameters which can be used to generalize the concept of classification of dependence patterns. Procedures will then be developed to identify factors by this method, and will be compared with procedures of "latent class analysis" currently used for this purpose. Hypotheses will be stated, and tests will be developed. In the second phase, the present status of the Step-Down-Analysis technique will be summarized and translated into an operational method suitable for the research worker. The final phase of the research program calls for a comparison of models designed by other researchers for subject-test interactions. The pattern of variancecovariance or correlational matrices resulting from each assumption regarding the nature of subject-test interactions will be presented, and statistical tests will be constructed to study the plausibility of each pattern of this kind, and to distinguish between different patterns. Statistical methods will be developed for the identification of models designed for the analysis of subject-test interactions and all methods translated into operational procedures. BOYD HARSHBARGER, director, Statistical Laboratory, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blackburg. Project 1132. Duration: 3 years. Jan. 1961 to Dec. 1963. Federal contribution: $66,425. |