Basic Lesson Research Articles

Species substitution and question sequencing in contingent valuation surveys evaluating the hunting of several types of wildlife

Abstract One of the first lessons in any economics course is that prices of substitute commodities matter. For example, the magnitude of estimated values for a specific recreation area may be substantially affected by the availability of substitute sites. This basic lesson of economics is often overlooked in the design of contingent‐valuation questions. Assumptions regarding the prices of substitutes become implicit in designing surveys and are rarely made explicit to survey respondents. In this article, hypotheses are formulated about hunter responses to contingent valuation questions under explicit and implicit assumptions regarding prices of substitute hunting opportunities. The hypotheses are tested using data from a statewide survey of Maine hunters. The results indicate that it may not be necessary to specify assumptions that prices of substitutes remain unchanged. In contrast, respondents did not change their statements of value when told that the prices of substitutes had doubled.

THE NSC STAFF: REBUILDING THE POLICY CRUCIBLE

Abstract : The Iran-Contra affair, if it accomplished nothing else, put an institutional spotlight on the National Security Council Staff, subjecting it to scrutiny unparalleled in its 40-year history. If we are to glean anything meaningful from this tawdry episode, other than entertainment value, it is critical that the right institutional lessons be learned and that appropriate systemic remedies be applied. The most basic lesson is that the affair manifested the much deeper problem that has plagued every administration since Truman -- the absence of clearly defined and functionally adequate responsibilities for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the National Security Council Staff he heads. Even a cursory review of postwar national security decision making reveals that different presidents have created different national security structures with differing degrees of success. At the same time, it appears that inexorable forces in the contemporary international system are driving modern presidents into more intimate involvement in national security affairs and the executive branch itself into what Zbigniew Brzezinski has described as a White House-centric presidential system of decision making. It is no accident, for example, that every president since JFK has found the State Department wholly inadequate in the formulation of national security policy. Diplomacy, it would now seem, is too important to be left to the diplomats. Given the factors of centralized decision making and the functional requisites, and with the caveat that no two presidents will structure the system identically, there should nonetheless be basic similarities across administrations in answering three fundamental questions: What should the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs do?; How should the NSC Staff be configured?; and How should Staff responsibilities be articulated? This article answers these questions and outlines an NSC Staff model for the future.

Poetry, Myths, and Aesthetics

Faced with three classes of senior English students certain that our upcoming poetry unit would be painful and worthless, I was determined to find an approach that would develop understanding of poetry's rudiments and appreciation of its power. Being seniors, i.e., hard-core adversaries of poetry study, my students were smugly confident that I had nothing new to say that could make poetry worthwhile. So, on the first day, I challenged their favorite excuses or, as I called them, myths regarding the study of poetry. Myth #1: Poetry's themes are the intimate thoughts of the poet. How can I be expected to understand someone else's personal feelings? It didn't take them long to admit that love, jealousy, fear, pain, etc., are universal emotions. My experience may not have taken place in the same location or with the same persons, but, being human, I have or will experience these feelings. Dispel Myth #1. Other typical excuses were contradicted in this first day's discussion, and it was fun to let students challenge their peers' weak arguments until it was generally agreed that their prejudices were unfounded and they would give this one more chance with an open mind. To say, It's boring, is unfair. The student has to be specific about what makes it boring. I was gratefully surprised to find agreement that all song or rock lyrics are not good poetry, but as in all genres, excellence can be found among volumes of mediocrity. I believe it is important to present a wide range of poetry in this unit, from Shakespeare to Bob Dylan. Why not give students at least some works with which they are familiar? I tied up this day's discussion with talk about two other myths; often the students bring these up themselves, but it is important to clarify them before moving on. Myth #2: It is worthless to study poetry themes because most themes have endless levels of meaning. Most poems can mean anything I want them to mean. The theme of nearly all poems can be bounded by reasonable limits, from narrow to broad. Once I have established these limits, I am free to interpret a poem on all plausible levels. This rationale can be applied to all art. Myth #3: It is a waste of time to study the rudiments of poetry. Why not just enjoy it? Just as a basic lesson on the freedoms and restrictions

Accountability and Quality Assurance in Health Care.

1. Kaizen in the Classroom: Becoming a World-Class Teacher. 2. First Class: Setting Up a Winning Program. 3. Setting the Stage: Creating a Learning Environment. 4. Keeping the Spark Alive: Motivating the Adult Learner. 5. Education or Training. 6. The Blueprint: Creating the Basic Lesson Plan. 7. Polishing the Stone: Advanced Lesson Planning. 8. The Power of the Pulpit: Lecturing as a Performing Art. 9. Variety Is the Key: Twentieth-Century Educational media. 10. Star Wars: Twenty-first century Educational Media. 11. Making the Grade: Evaluating You and Your Students. 12. Teaching. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.

Taxation, Human Capital, and Uncertainty

The growth of tax rates on earned income has focused attention upon the impact of such taxes on work effort. The effect of taxes on hours of work has been the subject of both careful theoretical and econometric study. The basic lesson of the theoretical literature is that the impact of taxation on hours of work is logically indeterminate because of the familiar conflict between income and substitution effects. Therefore, an enormous amount of econometric research has been done on this subject. Although there is a disconcertingly high variance in estimates of labour supply elasticities, it would probably be fair to say that the consensus is that the response in hours of work to changes in the net wage is very small for prime age male earners. This finding has been interpreted by some as evidence that taxes have little influence on work effort.

The PLATO system, its language, assets, and disadvantages in geological education

PLATO, a unique computer-based educational system at the University of Illinois, offers low cost, interactive educational use of the computer. From specially developed hardware to its language, TUTOR, the PLATO system facilitates instructor use of the computer for education as well as encouraging individual student learning experiences. Geological lessons being developed on the nationwide system are designed for multiple level use that allows the background and academic knowledge of the students to be recognized; the basic lesson remains the same in most situations however. Student receptivity has been outstanding, mainly because they are able to progress at a rate that is optimum for them and then only when they thoroughly comprehend the content of previous lessons.

The Oldest is the Newest

Geologists and other members of the oil and gas industry's exploration and production team have the continuous job of improving their performance to the end that oil and gas are found and produced in adequate quantities at the lowest possible cost at all times--good or bad. Satisfaction of estimated future demand calls for outstanding performance on their part, particularly in the United States. Fear that our resources and resourcefulness may be inadequate to the task diminishes--even evaporates--once the basic lesson history teaches has been learned. That lesson is not to underestimate the magnitude of the world's mineral resources and, further, not to underestimate man's ability to capture them and put them to use. Growth in the importance of geologists to exploration seems definitely assured as the more obvious prospects are taken out of circulation, leaving a generally deeper, more disseminated, and altogether more baffling hunting ground with which to cope. Countless exploratory problems which are basically geological, to be solved by geologists, pervade the present scene and are destined to multiply as time passes. Leadership by geologists throughout the exploratory process is mandatory. More geology, more imaginative geology, and more geology in geophysics, coupled with more wildcat drilling, will produce surprising results--surprising on the right side of the ledger. The oldest scientific finding tool--applied geology--becomes the newest.

The Oldest is the Newest: ABSTRACT

Geologists and other scientists and engineers on the exploration team have the continuous job of improving their performance to the end that oil and gas are found in adequate quantities at the lowest possible cost at all times--come boom or bust. Nobody can know what the future holds, but if present forecasts of domestic and foreign demand for oil and gas down the line materialize, outstanding growth in exploration and production technology is a necessity. Fear that such (or larger) demand cannot be satisfied evaporates once the basic lesson history teaches has been learned. That lesson is our unfortunate tendency to underestimate the magnitude of the world's mineral resources, and further to underestimate man's ability to capture them and use them. Growth in the importance of geologists to the exploratory process seems definitely assured as the more obvious prospects are taken out of circulation leaving deeper, more far-flung, and altogether more baffling hunting grounds with which to cope. As time passes, geologists will be called upon to make a greater contribution to the exploratory process than they have in the past. Rocky Mountain geologists have a goodly piece of the domestic hunting grounds as well as a fair cross section of the oil- and gas-finding problems. These include the discovery of fields at great depths, in unusual structural traps, and, in particular, in stratigraphic traps. In effect, the area is a hand specimen of the finding problems of the future. The opportunity of advancing the art of discovery while maintaining or even increasing the area's position in the domestic industry is ever present. Success can hardly be achieved, however, unless Rocky Mountain geologists lead exploratory thinking and action and do not pass the buck to the geophysicists and Dad Joiners. More geology, more imaginative geology, and more geology in geophysics, coupled with more wildcat drilling, will produce surprising results--surprising on the right side of the ledger. The oldest scientific finding tool--geology--becomes the newest, not only in the Rockies but elsewhere. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1566------------

Auditory Training for the Deaf

This book, essentially a manual for teachers, was written in order to provide a method and basic lesson material for auditory training of the deaf. The authors, both experienced in working with persons with hearing impairment, have adapted many of the lessons for home study and practice by the pupil aided by an assistant. In general, the lessons furnish material for listening experiences in sound contrasts, sounds in words, sentences and songs, and rhythmic patterns. It is felt that these experiences will enable the child with a residuum of hearing to recognize sounds and, thus, to improve his understanding of speech. Combined with lip reading, the training in recognition of sounds should enhance the information carried to the brain. The manual is in the tradition of Urbantschitsch's "Über Hörübungen bei Taubstummheit," which appeared in the 1890's in Vienna and Goldstein's "The Acoustic Method," which was published in 1939. On the

Ceramics A Basic Lesson in Wheel Throwing

Ceramics A Basic Lesson in Wheel Throwing