The purposes of the study were (1) to describe the historical rationale for teacher certification, (2) to survey and report the present requirement of the states for certification as a vocational office education teacher-coordinator, (3) to survey leading business and office education educators for recommendations for vocational office education teacher-coordinator certification requirements, (4) to examine, survey, and report the characteristics and qualifications of employed vocational office education teacher-coordinators, and (5) to develop a model of criteria representing ideal standards for initial and continuing certification requirements for vocational office education teacher-coordinators.

The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics of technological literacy for high school graduates. A panel of experts in technological literacy was used to formulate the list of characteristics and make judgments on each. The design of the study was the Delphi Method, using the Q-Sort Technique, with the Thurstone and Chave Method of Equal Appearing Intervals. Using the Method of Equal Appearing Intervals, median scores and Q-Values were calculated for each characteristic. The 80th percentile was used to determine when a characteristic reached consensus. A panel of experts was chosen from among seven groups: (a) philosophers of education, (b) technology educators, (c) engineering educators, (d) scientists, (e) science educators, (f) classroom teachers, and (g) business and education support. The results of the study provide a clearer focus on what is meant by technological literacy. This study identified a list of 24 consensus items to be used as minimum characteristics of technological literacy for high school graduates. / Ed. D.

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The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between educational and curricular factors and physician location decisions. As a background to the study, a literature search traced the history of medical education in the U.S., focusing on various influences on physician distribution. In the research on physician location decision, this study is unique in its use of the constant comparative method. This method is an inductive approach developed and refined by Glaser and Strauss, used in this study to generate theory regarding the role of educational factors in physician location decisions. In this research, two groups of physicians who completed training after 1965 were selected for study, based on their locations in distinctly different practice settings in Arizona: urban and rural. An open-ended interview format was developed, and each physician was interviewed, with data analysis beginning during the first interview and continuing through the entire period of data collection. Using the constant comparative method, similar groups (rural physicians) were compared to bring out basic properties of categories, and different groups (urban physicians) were then compared to establish boundaries of applicability of the theory. As the interviews proceeded a basic theoretical framework emerged, enabling development of a grounded theory of physician location decisions. The study presents strong empirical evidence in support of the proposition that educational factors are influential in the decision of a physician to enter practice in a rural area. Four primary influences were identified: faculty role modeling, participation in rural clerkships, preceptorships, or required family practice rotations, service activities related to health care for medically underserved populations, and education in a non-traditional setting, or residency training in a rural area. Curriculum content and requirements take on major significance when these influences are subsumed under the major influence of socialization. The extent to which these educational factors play a role in the practice locations of physicians varies according to educational opportunities available during the training period.

Rehabilitation and education are faced with the growing need for adequate and appropriate assessment tools for over 9,000 congenitally deaf-blind persons in this country. These tools are needed to help form the basis for evaluation of these clients/students so that programs appropriate to their specific needs can be determined. In the past, assessment of the functional development of this population has been based on tests standardized on populations of non-handicapped individuals. These measuring primarily language abilities, and experiential factors. Observational procedures can examine the spontaneous behavior of subjects over a long period of time. This is an alternative to standardized instruments. One of these in current use is the Basic Life Skills Screening Inventory. This instrument was developed in 1982 for the purpose of assisting educators and counselors in establishing the readiness of deaf-blind, developmentally disabled clients/students for vocational and life skills training. Though useful in its original form, this instrument has two major limitations. One is the fact that the rater is given only limited choices, resulting in a ceiling effect and a pronounced skew of many of its scales. Another limitation is its lengthy 283 item format, requiring too much administration time to be practical on a daily basis. The present study focused on making needed modifications in this instrument that would help alleviate these limitations, and continue to maintain high psychometric properties within the instrument. In doing this, rater choices were expanded from three (3) to five (5) column headings, and the instrument was reduced from 283 items to 145 items. This study was designed to answer the following questions: (1) Can the Basic Life Skills Screening Inventory be modified in such a way as to give the rater a greater response choice, thus allowing for a more refined assessment? (2) Can the 283 item, Basic Life Skills Screening Inventory be shortened by approximately 50%, to allow for an easier and more practical administration, and continue to maintain high psychometric properties? Results indicate that, despite the modifications, a very high overall consistency among the items was maintained with a total average alpha of 9935.5.

From the late 1950s to about 1970, philosophers of education began to adopt a mode of philosophizing characterized as "the linguistic turn," after a similar change in general philosophy. This involved a move away from the older "isms" approach rooted in metaphysics towards linguistic and conceptual analysis. The linguistic turn has been attributed to intellectual history--the influence of ideas on a field. The central argument of this study, however, is that during the 1950s, factors external to academia, but acting upon it, interacted with concerns by educational philosophers themselves to create the conditions for the linguistic turn. These factors included the attacks on public schooling and "educationists," the teacher education reform movement, the Ford Foundation funding of liberal arts oriented teacher preparation, and, within the academy, the concern on the part of educational philosophers for the academic legitimacy of their discipline. These factors led philosophers of education to model their discourse more closely on the reigning paradigm in general philosophy, linguistic analysis. The attacks on public schooling were centered on progressivism for its alleged anti-intellectualism and subversive character. Philosophers of education were the particular targets of these critics. Teacher preparation in education schools also came under scrutiny during this period. The Ford Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of Education underwrote major programs that centered teacher preparation in a liberal arts curriculum, with only minimal coursework devoted to professional training. In addition, the National Commission for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) supported such a reorientation, with a concomitant weakening of educational philosophy's place in teacher education programs. Philosophers of education responded by lobbying for the inclusion of their courses in certification requirements, forging an alliance with the American Philosophical Association, reducing the social activism that had characterized earlier educational philosophers' efforts, and adopting the more academically legitimate methods of general philosophy. In the short term these actions assured educational philosophy a place in teacher education programs. In the long run, however, the linguistic turn may have jeopardized the survival of educational philosophy as an academic field by creating a chasm between philosopher and practitioner.

This investigation was designed to aid in the development of a teacher preparation program for alternative teachers. A "Theory of Intersubjective Personal Relationships" was established and utilized throughout the study. The theoretical framework was formulated from a series of concepts derived from the literature of social psychology to guide in collecting and reporting the data, as well as constructing a teacher preparation program for alternative schools. The framework consisted of four key words: (1) choicing, (2) awareness, (3) acceptance, and (4) sharing. The focus of the investigation was concerned with the intersubjective relationships as related to alternative students and their teacher. The case study approach grounded in ethnography and existentialism, was employed in gathering and reporting the data. It permitted the investigator to observe, interact, and record the multiple phenomenon. The investigation focused on the "in school lives" of five alternative students and their teacher. Each of the five students in her/his personal school relationship became the subject of a case study. The investigator, as participant observer, was the instructor of each of the five students. The teacher maintained records of the various interactions with the students. Moreover, she had available documents such as diaries, term papers, journals, and other student-produced artifacts. The case studies were presented using the theory of intersubjective personal relationships. The presentation of each case was organized using the four terms of the theory. Each case was presented to demonstrate at least one of the theoretical behavioral concepts. The resulting data were recorded and analyzed according to the four behavioral concepts. A proposal for a teacher preparation program for alternative teachers was developed from the case studies. The program featured the following provisions: (1) alternative high school student consultants, (2) the study and discussion of the theory, (3) the opportunity to operationalize the theory, (4) the opportunity to develop and understand "support networks," (5) the opportunity to meet, consult, and work with community representatives, (6) the opportunity to maintain diaries and develop other records of experiences, and (7) the opportunity for daily meetings to interact and operationalize the "Theory of Intersubjective Personal Relationships."