DEVELOPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS THROUGH GRANT PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT

Developing good research ideas is both a science and an art. Teaching students how to select and then conceptualize the research idea requires both tools and practice. This paper discusses the identification of an appropriate research question and the refinement of it into a working research plan in the format of a grant proposal. The author has used the development of a grant proposal to demonstrate the linkages between theoretical models of aging policy and aging policy research in a master's level Aging and Public Policy Course. In this course students choose, develop, and refine a research statement in response to a request for proposal from an independent foundation. The theoretical knowledge cycle is used to discuss how these students learn over time to refine and reformulate their ideas into workable research questions. Students report that writing for a real funding entity allows them to develop both proficiency with the construction of a research question and research plan and develop expertise with aging policy.     

DEVELOPING GERONTOLOGY EDUCATORS THROUGH A GRADUATE TEACHING PRACTICUM

Three particular functions of higher education institutions are examined with reference to possible and appropriate tasks related to gerontological education and training. A series of matrices, each dealing with one component of educational gerontology and the three functions, provides a model that could serve as a means of allocating resources and identifying appropriate involvement of the institutions.     

DEVELOPING THE RESOURCES OF THE RURAL ELDERLY THROUGH EDUCATION

Older adults want continuing education programs that are more than just recreational activities to fill leisure time. DARE (Developing Adult Resources through Education) is an educational program for the rural aged that provides courses ranging from those of a serious, academic orientation to the hobby/recreational to the practical. A model of why adult learners engage in lifelong learning is applied to the older adult. DARE shows how college and community resources can be used for the educational advantage of the older person.     

DEVELOPING FACULTY THROUGH A UNIVERSITY/COMMUNITY NURSING SERVICE PARTNERSHIP

More people are surviving to old age, which places increasing demands on the health care system and accentuates the importance of developing alternate methods of meeting the unique health care needs of older adults. A university/ community partnership, such as the one described in this article is one example of an innovative, alternate community nursing service. The program provides home health services; gerontological teaching, research, and practice opportunities for faculty; and expanded gerontological clinical experiences for nursing students. Critical elements of program development are discussed and recommendations for similar programs are given.     

UNIVERSITY AUTONOMY: MODELS AND PERSPECTIVES

The author suggests that among the changes which will come in the wake of the reduction and the elimination of international boundaries in Europe will be an increase in the linkages among nationally peripheral higher education institutions which happen to be close together but on opposite sides of common international borders. Such linkages, which will no doubt profit from the parallel movement to increase the financial independence of higher education institutions vis‐!‐vis their national authorities, will probably also affect the centre‐periphery balance of power within given national higher education administrative authorities. These questions and others should quickly be made the objects of good comparative studies.     

DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES OF TEACHING SCIENCE THROUGH ACTION RESEARCH: A QUALITATIVE META-SYNTHESIS FROM PAKISTAN

This study is a meta-synthesis of 20 action research studies undertaken in the classroom by teachers to develop their understanding of an innovative strategy for teaching science. The studies were undertaken as part of the requirements for their 2-year M.Ed. program from the Aga Khan University, Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED), Pakistan. The teachers enrolled in the program are expected to conduct a small-scale study as part of their thesis requirement which counts for 16 credits or 25% of the program. Twenty studies from a total of 350 M.Ed. thesis were selected based on specific criteria that they (a) are qualitative action research studies, (b) are undertaken by teachers who themselves teach in the science classroom, and (c) use an innovative strategy for teaching science. The meta-synthesis shows that action research contributed to developing understanding in all three domains of teacher knowledge: pedagogical knowledge, subject matter knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. The teacher researchers developed an understanding of the theory and practice of the innovative strategy implemented and found that the transformation of their science content knowledge to “fit” the new ways of teaching was the most challenging and rewarding part of their research. They also found that the balance between innovative ways of teaching science and current methods of assessment was very hard to achieve and created a barrier to the acceptance of new methods of teaching.     

ON HAVING ONE'S CHANCE: AUTONOMY AS EDUCATION'S LIMIT

When hopelessness and helplessness become recurring themes in teacher education scholarship, this signals a conceptual problem with the question of autonomy in the profession. In this essay, Alice Pitt argues that breakdowns of professional life belong to what is most subjective in the profession. Pitt opens her analysis of this conundrum by examining some earlier formulations of the problem of learning a profession. Next, she explores four orientations to the role of education in modern life and examines an interview with a beginning teacher as a way to think about autonomy in its emotional as well as rational qualities. A reconfigured autonomy suggests that education is more than a site of the failure of the Enlightenment promise to advance reason's dominance in the organization of social life. Education, in its professional, practical, and experiential realms, reveals the dynamic qualities of the limits of reason, according to Pitt. She concludes that a constitutive alterity at the heart of the educational project renders the profession a significant site for ongoing investigation of the human condition and the play of autonomy.     

西部大开发战略与政府职能转变

西部大开发战略的形成和实施有其特定背景 ,势在必行。而当前政府职能中存在的诸多问题阻碍着西部大开发战略的顺利实施 ,这些问题有 :政企不分 ,企业仍然是政府的附属物 ;地方保护主义盛行 ,消费者主权尚未确立等。因此 ,必须转变政府经济职能。这就要求政府从实物市场主体中退出 ,充分尊重市场经济规律 ,积极培育市场体系 ,完善法律法规 ,解放思想 ,转变观念。     

自主支持——积极心理研究的新视角

自主支持是自我决定理论衍生出的一个概念,是人格与动机研究领域的一个新热点.本文从自我决定理论和积极心理学运动两个方面分析了自主支持的研究背景.通过对自主支持界定和行为特点的总结,明确了自主支持的概念.并对自主支持在学校、家庭、工作和临床四种生活情境中的积极功能进行了概述.在此基础上,分析了在自主支持领域研究中存在的一些不足和将来发展的方向.     

THE RELIGIOUS ZIONIST: TOWARD THE NEW ERA

This essay presents the problems inherent in religious Zionist education on the eve of a new era, and proposes avenues toward solutions. That the Torah is permanent and the world is relative and changing leads to many incongruities within and among components of religious Zionist identity. The cyber‐era will expose the religious Zionist to a great deal of information, some of which maybe harmful and confusing—especially to adolescents—because of the weakness of present religious Zionist educational doctrines. Therefore, religious Zionist identity is in danger of “overload,” due to incongruities among and within systems. This overload may cause some people to abandon religion and others to turn to ultraorthodoxy, impoverishing the religious Zionist community in two ways, and reducing its ability to serve as a bridge between national factions.     

AGING AND DISABILITY: TOWARD A UNIFYING AGENDA

The aged and the disabled have traditionally been split into two opposing camps by providers of services and themselves. With focus on five cross‐cutting phenomena—their prevalence the ever‐changing nature of their conditions their reactions to both the technicalization and medicalization of their care and the full implications of the home care revolution—for the importance of their finding a common ground is argued. The last section delineates the process by which such a unifying agenda might come to be.     

CHILDREN'S ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ELDERLY: EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

The CATE (Children's Attitudes Toward the Elderly) was administered to 180 children, 20 at each level from age 3 to age 11. Results suggest that children at all age levels have limited knowledge of and contact with older people. Few children gave positive responses about growing old themselves; most did not perceive being old as positive. Attitudes of children toward the elderly suggest a mixture of positive feelings of affect and either stereotypic or negative attitudes about the physical aspects of age. It was determined that children's concepts of age increase in accuracy as they increase in age. Educational implications include providing accurate information about the elderly and actual contact with older people, enabling children to assess their perceptions of the aging process and how aging affects them, and exposing children to an unbiased look at the attributes, behaviors, and characteristics of the elderly in a wide variety of roles in order to avoid or extinguish the formation of stereotypic, negative attitudes.     

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ELDERLY: AN INTERGENERATIONAL EXAMINATION

The relationship between children's attitudes toward older people and older people's perception of children's attitudes toward them were examined using the Attitude Perception Questionnaire. Results were analyzed for 52 fifth‐ and sixth‐grade children and 52 older adults, and comparisons made on the basis of age, sex and amount of intergenerational contact. Older adults perceptions of children's attitudes toward them were more negative than the children's actual attitudes. Implications for persons involved in planning and implementing intergenerational programs are discussed.