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Miami-Dade Community College has conducted an annual survey of its graduates for nearly a decade. In the past, the processing and tabulation of results were essentially manual operations. This paper describes a recently-developed computerized system which carries out most of the processing of this survey up through the tabulation of results. The entire system is shown in a series of five flow diagrams included in the appendix. Accompanying narrative descriptions of the flow charts further explain the specific operations necessary to key off an operational student records system, collect additional data, and tabulate the results. Diagram 1 shows the method of creating a work tape, which is then edited for errors and tailored to the specific needs of the graduate followup study. Diagram 2 shows the method of punching a deck of finder cards consisting of student identification numbers; this deck of cards ultimately becomes the reference list for the printing of mailing labels. Diagram 3 describes the mailout, remainder followup, and coding of returned questionnaires. Diagram 4 describes the updating of the Grad Bank tape, which contains data from all previous graduate followups conducted since the installment of the computerized system. Diagram 5 shows how the Grad Bank is utilized. (Author/DC)

The behavior laboratory is an approximation of Reality. It is contrived and semi-structured, and thus is reality, and not Reality. The time-frame is short, but it need not be if more courses dealt with the subject matter in this experiential fashion. Outside readings are used, and content examinations are given in an effort to tie content and laboratory experience together. This paper does not deal with the content material since that is the usual stress of college and other courses. The basic advantage of the Laboratory approach is that participants can experience -- can "live through" the phenomena that heretofore they have only read about or discussed in an intellectual fashion. The opportunity to get rapid feedback on one's behavior is rare and valuable for the participants. It should be almost entirely non-evaluative in terms of "good" or "bad" behavior -- concentrating instead on the issue of effective functioning and goal orientation. Students, especially at the undergraduate level, seem to have a difficult time accepting the different format and goals of the behavior laboratory. A few complete the course without ever seeming to become involved in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report discusses secondary level psychology instruction in Florida public schools. The typical high school psychology student is described. The composite picture is of a student who is white, most often female, attends a large urban high school, and receives instruction with a behavioral emphasis from a social studies teacher with a Masters Degree. Psychology instruction is also discussed in terms of teacher and school characteristics, course emphasis, textbooks, and instructional materials. The bulk of the report analyzes twelve general introductory psychology textbooks. Information is included on the types, kinds, and frequencies of textbook treatment of units, chapters, content, and illustrations. Data are presented on unit headings, chapter headings, percentage of pages devoted to illustrations, and mention of individual names which appear in at least five of the 12 textbooks. Data on the frequently named persons, generally psychologists, psychiatrists, and other social scientists, are analyzed according to the number of pages which contain the name and by cross text comparison of treatment of a person mentioned on at least three pages in any one of the texts. Tables relating to the textbook evaluation, a list of textbooks studied, and description of five precollege psychology teaching workshop sessions are included in the document. (Author/DB)

This study was conducted to learn whether black educators who had been principals of all-black schools experienced job displacement during the period when schools were being desegregated. Reactive and nonreactive data-collecting techniques were used to gather information on 343 black administrators. The findings indicate that during the desegregation process, black educators experienced job displacement in the form of dismissal, demotion, or transfer not initiated by the black educator. Study data also show that the number of principalships held by black educators has remained disproportionately low, and that there have been only a few black administrators occupying regularly funded, hardline district level positions. (Author)

Two plant utilization strategies have been implemented by the Dade County Public Schools: the extended school day and the extended school year. The 10-hour extended day plan increases the capacity of a school facility by approximately 75 percent by dividing the school enrollment into two equal groups and dividing the day into two equal sessions. Each student is assigned five subjects, but could elect to take an additional subject and extend his school day. The quinmester extended school year designed has been developed around a calendar that divides the school year into five 45-day sessions and which provides maximum flexibility in educational programing to the school and the student. A student in a school operating under the quinmester organization must attend any four quinmesters in the five quinmester school year, and has the option of attending all five quinmesters to accelerate his graduation or to do remedial work. The strategy of the quinmester program provides significant implications for curriculum improvement and a program of 9-week, nongraded, nonsequential courses of instruction for each subject area of the curriculum. The quinmester program is voluntary and, since it does not result in an increase in student capacity anywhere approaching that of the extended school day plan, schools suffering from overcapacity could operate both plans simultaneously. A school calendar and other program development materials are included in the appendixes. (Author/DN)

The purpose of this presentation is to report on a study undertaken by the author to asses teachers' social perceptions of dialectal differences among junior high school males. Male and female teachers judged the academic ability and school behavior of three black and three white male student speakers representing upper-middle-class, middle-class, and lower-class backgrounds, based on their spoken language. Teachers heard tape-recordings of these junior high school students reading the same brief passage. Black and white teachers, 13 of each, were selected by a random procedure from a junior high school in the Dade County, Florida, Public School System. This particular school was selected because of the black and white ratio (21 percent black, 79 percent white) of faculty desegregation, and the diversity in the teachers' birthplaces, educational backgrounds, and geographical locations of their teaching experiences. The findings indicate that white speakers were perceived with a significantly higher degree of favorableness by all teachers. Black teacher judgments were found to be significantly more favorable than those of white teachers. There were no significant differences found in the degree of favorableness with which upper-middle, middle, or lower-class speakers were perceived by all teachers. (Author/JM)

The Asolo State Theatre Company and Florida State University, operating together, provide a professional repertory theatre company, professional theatre training, a laboratory for theatre-related research, and a resource both for innovative teaching in the public schools and for undergraduate training in the humanities. Begun in 1960, this operation has grown from a summer student company to a year-round professional theatre company plus 19 full-time faculty members in the School of Theatre in 1974. Since the Asolo was designated the State Theatre of Florida in 1965, the state, the university, and the community have shared in the necessary financial subsidy, with additional support coming from the National Endowment for the Arts and other agencies. This is a highly successful operation which can serve as an example for the establishment of other similar theatre programs. (JM)

A prediction derived from cognitive dissonance theory is that children devalue an attractive but forbidden toy when mild rather than severe threat deters them from playing with it. One study found the opposite effect for lower socioeconomic class children, i.e., a harsh verbal threat produced more devaluation than a mild threat. Since the latter study was judged to contain methodological and theoretical difficulties, the present study was designed to further explore the "forbidden toy" paradigm with lower-income children. Nature (loss of money versus loss of approval) and level (severe versus mild) of threat were varied in a two by two factorial design. It was predicted that lower-income children (a) devalue a forbidden toy more when threatened with loss of money than with loss of approval, (b) derogate the toy more under threat of severe rather than mild money loss, and (c) devalue the toy an equally small amount regardless of threat level in the loss of approval condition. The data supported the hypotheses. Four- and five-year old black children (N = 43) selected from a day-care center located in a lower socioeconomic neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Florida, served as subjects. Findings are discussed in terms of reinforcement history and "sour grapes," suggesting that when a life history which includes repeated denials to requests for attractive objects leads one to believe that when an adult prohibits a toy, it means that the toy will never be available. (Author/JM)

Five articulation studies to be performed by the Florida Community Junior College Inter-Institutional Research Council are discussed. The studies are: General Description of Student Characteristics--A Transfer Student Profile; Upper Dividion Performance of Community College Students Grouped by Level of Florida Transfers by Majors and in Core Courses in Majors; Retention of Students in Lower Divisions in Florida Public Universities and Community Colleges and in Upper Division of Universities; and Academic Success of the Graduates of Three Florida Public Universities in Post-Baccalaureate Study. (DB)

The Florida Follow Through Model is one of several federally-funded experimental programs that attempts to modify the type of educational experience that children from low-income backgrounds receive during their first four years (K-3) of schooling. In the case of the Florida model, the emphasis is on home as well as school intervention. Two mothers from low-income backgrounds are trained and placed in the classroom to work as a team with the teacher. Called parent educators, the mothers visit the homes of the children in the classroom weekly and assist the teacher with classroom instruction. The classroom teacher is a key person in the Florida model. She coordinates both the instructional and home visit activities of the parent educators. Her morale is therefore important to the success of the program. It is the purpose of this article to: (1) briefly examine the nature of teacher morale, (2) look at the ways in which the Florida model affects teacher morale and, therefore, the child through the delicate set of home-school interactions called for by the model, and (3) report empirical data concerning the effect of the model on teacher morale during its first two years of operation. During the first two years of operation, teacher morale was assessed by a means of the "Purdue Teacher Opinionnaire" which is probably the best known and most widely used of all self-report teacher morale instruments. (Author/JM)

The State Library of Florida sponsored a conference in 1974 to provide an interchange of ideas between public libraries and specialists in adult basic education (ABE). Nine papers were given covering existing ABE programs, the role of libraries in ABE, how to find and evaluate materials, and methods of interagency cooperation. Nine appendixes include a bibliography of bibliographies, a 72-item bibliography of books from the State Library of Florida concerned with adult education and literacy, a listing of over 200 ABE materials, information from the Appalachian Adult Education Center, and a list of library programs in ABE. (DS)