Important Fac Research Articles

A Study of the Viewpoints held by School Amdinistrators Regarding Vocational Education in the Secondary School

THE EDUCATIONAL viewpoints held by school administrators are presumed to be important fac tors in determining curriculum offerings in the secondary school. Of course, the educational practices in the school system may or may not conform to the educational viewpoints held by the administrator. It must be recognized that the school administrator cannot always translate his educational viewpoints into practice because of a host of conditions. Nevertheless, in terms of probable inference, the school administrators are in a favorable position to exert influence on the curriculum design of the secondary school. Con sequently, it is reasonable to assume that their viewpoints regarding vocational education contrib ute much toward the degree of acceptance or re jection of this phase of s e c o ndary education and the way in which the program is carried out. Therefore, this study was undertaken to secure the viewpoints of Indiana school administrators regarding pertinent questions dealing with voca tional education.

Crystallite Structure of Cokes from Pitch Fractions.

M a n y carbon products a r e made by mixing c o k e with a binder such a s pitch, shaping t h e mass, and baking t h e product a t a n elevated temperature. To produce carbon e lec t rodes for t h e aluminum industry, a mixture containing 10 t o 35% of pitch and a coke aggregate i s carbonized at 950’ to llOOo C. Several t e s t s have been proposed to determine t h e sui tabi l i ty of p i tches for u s e a s binders in t h e manufacture of carbon products. Martin and Nelson (12) suggested that a good pitch should have a high spec i f ic gravity and carbon-hydrogen ratio. Chare t te and Bischofberger (7) proposed t h e u s e of t h e product of coking va lue t imes carbon-hydrogen ratio. One of t h e most important fac tors is t h e quality of t h e “binder coke” which f o r m s f r o m t h e pi tch during baking. Milliken (11) and Blayden, Gibson, and Riley (4) showed that t h e type of coke depends upon t h e chemical constitution of t h e mater ia ls being carbonized and t h e carbonizat ion procedure. With some except ions t h e more aromatic compounds formed the more graphi t ic cokes. Van Krevelen and Chermin (13) observed tha t t h e yield of coke on carbonizat ion i s greater for aromatic compounds. Ghosh and Riley (9) divided a pi tch into three p a r t s by solvent fractionation and showed that on carbonizat ion the insoluble fraction formed a c o k e with t h e l e a s t graphitic structure. From t h e resu l t s of a modified Kattwinkel t e s t , Briickner and Huber (6) concluded that t h e insoluble fraction a c t s chiefly a s a f i l ler and may even be harmful t o c o k e quality. T h e s e resu l t s l e d to t h e present invest igat ion; for they raised t h e ques t ions of whether a more ex tens ive fractionation of pitch binders would reveal additional var ia t ions in graphitizability, whether any differences ex is ted in graphitizability of corresponding fract ions from different pi tches , and what t h e c a u s e s of such differences were. P i t c h e s a r e tar dis t i l la t ion res idues having cube-in-water melting points above 80’F. (1). They cons is t of a n insoluble phase, t h e C-I fraction, d i spersed in a cont inuous phase. T h e amount determined a s C-I depends upon t h e solvent used in t h e analyt ical procedure-good pitch sol-

Attitudes and Professional Relationships of Teachers

INDUSTRY, business and education are increasingly recognizing significance of human factors. Many studies indicate that social factors are most important determinants of productivity and success in human enterprises. The major task of any organization appears to be creation and continuance of a favorable social and emotional climate that will capitalize on potentialities of workers and provide basic satisfactions that people want. In situations where workers obtain these satisfactions, attitudes of interest, cheerfulness, initiative, devotion, and cooperation are evidenced. Increase inproduc tion and growth in unity, strength and effective ness usually accompany such attitudes. Themen tal and emotional reactions to job imply high morale by which we mean the capacity of a group of people to pull together persistently and consist ently in pursuit of a common purpose ( 7 ) or, the quality of giving fully of one's best efforts to carry out a purpose (1) or, the capacity and courage to carry on a task with deter m i na ti o n, loyalty, cooperation, and a sense of personal satisfaction and well-being (6). On other hand, low morale is indicated by loafing, bicker ing, absenteeism, dissatisfaction, lack of confi dence, high turn-over, inefficiency, and low pro duction. It is essential that manage ment and workers agree on and pursue common goals, but perhaps most important element in m o r ale is what workers feel and believe, not what actual conditions are. Morale can be sampled and its quality deter mined by studying attitudes and reactions of workers to their jobs, satisfactions, dis satisfactions, and feelings being experienced. Attitude surveys to discover how employees re act to a variety of practices and policies have been used extensively in business and indus try. In a few school systems, surveys have been con ducted in which opinions of teachers were sought on matters relating to their jobs. Keeping alert to state of mind of teachers with respect to changes in school practices would seem tobe nec cessary for maintaining a good working atmos phere and morale. Periodic attitude surveys stimulate morale in that teachers are led to be lieve that somebody is interested enough to try to find out how they feel. In some school sys tems, annual surveys are being conducted to identify teacher attitudes toward important fac tors affecting morale, results being used to identify and improve conditions adver se to morale.

The Relative Intellectual Achievement Of Mentally Gifted And Retarded Children

The relative intellectual achievement of mentally gifted and retarded children under our present educational program is an im portant problem for the educator. The pres ent study has as its purpose the investigation of findings relative to this problem. McGehee, in his study of retarded elementary school children, concluded that mentally retarded children achieving more in the subject matter fields in this investigation than would be anticipated from an analysis of their men tal age placements. (6, 52) The writer, in his investigation of mentally superior chil dren, which was based upon the same survey, concluded that, Gifted children are retarded in school achievement when achievement is considered in relation to intelligence capa city- (S> 66) The writer is of the opinion that these findings are correct if only the mental ages of the groups and their grade placement are considered, as was the case in the above mentioned investigations, but it now seems evident that a very important fac tor was not considered, namely, the chrono logical ages of the two groups of children and the length of time the respective groups had been in school. It is quite possible that a consideration of the time the two groups had been in school might lead to different conclusions since the time spent in school should be related directly to their respective opportunities for learning, an important fac tor in relative achievement. There are certain conclusions relative to the achievement of mentally gifted and re tarded children regarding which there is gen eral agreement at the present time and which McGehee and the writer, in their compre hensive investigations of the achievement of the two groups, substantiated. It is beyond dispute that there is a positive, if not high correlation between mental ability and in tellectual achievement, the correlations rang ing from +.45 to+.8o. It has been shown that the achievement of mentally retarded children is less than that of normal or supe rior children of the same chronological age. (7,95 an? 2,126) It does not follow from this that retarded children are achieving less, in terms of their ability than normal or superior children since it would be absurd to expect them to achieve as much as normal or superior children of the same age. The very meaning of the term mentally retarded implies that dull children possess less learn ing ability than normal or superior children of the same age. Normal children should achieve more than mentally retarded chil dren, and superior children should achieve more than normal children.

A Statistical Study of a New Type of Objective Examination Question

The present study was undertaken to determine the reliability and validity of the Wrong-Word type of objective examination question. The Wrong-Word type of question is an adaptation of the kind of item used in the Chapman-Cook Speed of Reading Test. The following directions were used : In each of the following sentences pick out the one word that makes the sentence wrong and write it in the space on the left. The wrong word is never one of the first three words in the sentence. For example : hearing Spectacles are commonly used to improve the hearing. A few samples of the items used in the examination are given below. The correct answers are given in parentheses. (native) Habits are probably the most important native fac tors of advantage in attention in adults. (cerebellum) The pyramidal tract is a bundle of fibers extending from the higher motor centers in the cerebellum to the lower motor centers in the cord. (afferent) The autonomie nervous system, which is afferent in function, is a relatively independent system. The chief advantage of this kind of material is its flexibility. Any kind of sentence structure, simple or complex, can be used. Facts which do not readily lend themselves to formulation as analogies, single choice, and matching questions can usually be put into the form of Wrong-Word items. As compared with completion questions, which are also flexible in form, they have the advantage of objectivity in scoring. In completion questions, it is sometimes necessary to decide by subjective judgment whether a particular answer, different from that given in the key, is to be considered correct. It seemed worth while, therefore, to determine by statistical analysis the suitability of this kind of item for use in objective examinations.