Note: These are not meant to be models to which you should necessarily aspire.  They are just examples.  A couple are overly complex and needlessly verbose.  Nevertheless, the collection should provide you with a good idea of how structures are presented and what they accomplish.  The last one is from the first dissertation completed at Arkansas State Univeristy.

Hall and Fagen (1956) define a social system as a bounded set of elements (subsystems)and activities in mutual interaction that constitute a single social entity. A given social system must have distinct boundaries which separate it from the environment, defined as anything outside the system that can affect and is affected by the social system. Social systems may be open or closed, depending on their interaction with the environment. Social systems strive to maintain homeostasis and equilibrium, using internal and external feedback loops to identify imbalances.

Public schools can be defined as open social systems. The Getzels-Guba Model (Hoy and Miskel, 1978) identifies their structural elements as:

Institutional -- the organization's formal bureaucratic structure, encompassing hierarchy or authority; policies, rules and procedures; and specialization.

Individual -- the varying behavior of individuals in similar situations.

Informal Group -- the formation of groups by individuals to balance bureaucratic expectations and individual needs. Groups also establish an organizational climate that will affect individual behavior.

Internal Feedback Loop -- tells individuals how their behavior is viewed by the organization's formal and informal structure and can also influence individual behavior.

External Feedback Loop -- provides an opportunity for input from the environment which may influence bureaucratic expectations and group intentions.

The conflict under consideration in this study is the challenge, made by some person or persons from within the environment, to materials used in or acquired by a school or school library with a written collection development policy. The bounded systems to be studied, therefore, are schools or school libraries which have written collection development policies and which have had at least one challenge to their materials from someone within their environments, (i.e., the communities which they serve).

Adapting the Getzels-Guba Model, the independent variables in the study can be grouped into Formal, Informal, and External groups. Staff is defined as teachers, librarians, administrators, and school boards.

Formal (Institutional) Factors

As previously stated, there have been guidelines established by the national professional associations for the writing of policy statements and procedures for handling complaints. Serebnick (l979), in A Review of Research  Related to Censorship in Libraries, found that research studies did accept that there was a distinction between selection and censorship and that the Library Bill of Rights was accepted as the librarians' official statement on professional guidelines for selecting materials.

The roles that public library and school boards of education can play in initiating or supporting censorial action in libraries and schools is critical. "Decision in Tulsa: An Issue of Censorship" and "Innocence Lost: One Librarian's Experience," two journal articles recapping the successful stand taken by two public libraries against a challenge, report that the library boards stood behind the rights of freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. Conversely, the heated and sometimes violent censorship fights in Warsaw, Indiana, and Kanawha County, West Virginia, were precipitated by members of the school boards (Jenkinson, l979).

The two public library case reports also indicated that the libraries had written collection policies, complete with procedures to handle complaints. All staff were aware of the policy and knew exactly what to do when the complaint was received.

In an opinionnaire survey of 900 midwestern librarians' attitudes toward intellectual freedom, censorship, and certain authoritarian beliefs, Busha (l971) found a significant relationship between the position held by a librarian and his/her attitude toward censorship. In this survey, which had a 69.3% final response rate, library directors obtained the highest mean censorship score. A study by Pope (l973) (also an opinionnaire survey), of public, school, and college librarians' attitudes toward sexually oriented literature, with a 59.8% final response rate, substantiated Busha's conclusion that there appears to be a relationship between administrative responsibility of the librarians and their tendency to restrict materials.

Jenkinson (l979) indicates two possible reasons for the vulnerability of schools to the attacks of censors -- 1) the lack of effective communication between schools, students, parents, and other members of the community, and 2) quick acceptance of complaints by school personnel who ignore the established procedures for handling complaints.

Generalizing from the above, the independent variables grouped as Formal will be:

• the content of the policy and procedures
• the extent to which current staff participated in the development of the policy
• the extent to which current staff were made aware of the policy and procedures
• the extent to which established procedures were followed
• the formal approval of the policy at all hierarchical levels
• the extent to which there is a parent/community information sharing policy

One of the most consistent research findings in library censorship studies is the willingness of the librarian to perform voluntary censorship of materials, also known as self-censorship.

The Fiske (l959) study of book selection and censorship in California public and school libraries in the l950's is considered the most influential research on censorship in United States libraries. Twenty-six California communities were chosen based on their size, rate of growth, ethnic composition, geographic location, and type of library service. 204 municipal, county, and school librarians and administrators in 48 municipal and county units and 46 senior high schools in the 26 communities were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Among other things, Fiske found that:

--although a majority of librarians stated that they believed in the freedom to read, large numbers of those same librarians restricted or condoned restricting materials.

--the qualities of the institution in which the librarian worked had more impact on the librarians' attitudes and behavior toward controversial issues than did any characteristics of the community in which the institution was located.

--although librarians felt few direct pressures for censorship and they gave verbal allegiance to the idea of intellectual freedom "because they sense a kind of free-floating anxiety in the air about them, they are reluctant to put their concepts to the test of practice" (pp. 73-74).

Busha (l972, p.300) also found that although librarians "did not hesitate to agree with cliches of intellectual freedom, many of them apparently did not feel strong enough as professionals to assert those principles in the face of real or anticipated censorship pressures."

In 1979 Woods and Salvatore studied the practice of self-censorship in the nation's secondary school library media centers. A one-page questionnaire was sent to a select sample of high school librarians in the United States asking them to identify, from a list of controversial titles, the status of those titles held by their library media centers. One of their conclusions, based on the presence of large numbers of materials which had some sort of restricted access, was that many librarians are reluctant to face censorship battles. The survey had an initial response rate of 76.6%, but only 66.7% were usable returns. No attempt was made to follow up on non-respondents. Even so, the finding is consistent with Fiske and Busha and indicates the continuing relevance of the issue.

Generalizing from the above, the independent variables grouped as Informal will be the non-official behaviors of current staff at all hierarchical levels in terms of:

awareness of the policy and procedures

informal approval of the policy (i.e., attitude toward intellectual freedom)

peer pressure toward accepting or rejecting the policy

willingness to follow established procedures

willingness to be involved in a controversial situation

willingness to implement and support a parent/community information sharing program

In a comparison of the censorship controversies in Warsaw, Indiana, and Kanawha County, West Virginia, Jenkinson (l979) indicates that both were fanned by outside agencies that supplied reviews of the school materials, had proponents and opponents, and formed local groups of concerned citizens against textbooks.

Similarly, Serebnick's (l979) review includes references to a report by Wallis about serious censorship cases which were initiated and prolonged by restrictive mayors who sought and achieved removal and restriction of controversial publications. Serebnick also references a report by Good, whose analysis of additional censorship cases indicated that ministers, chiefs of police, district attorneys, newspaper editors, and members of parent-teacher associations had also exerted noticeable influence to provoke or combat censorship actions.

Another important external factor is publicity. As Jenkinson (l979, p. 161) indicates:

In far too many incidents of censorship, school officials have attempted to `keep the matter quiet.' That strategy may well backfire. Censors are willing to exert a great deal of pressure because they know that some school officials will respond favorably in fear that they might otherwise receive negative publicity. On the other hand, few censors are willing to be exposed . . . And in many instances the general public would oppose the censors if they only knew what the censors were after.

Fiske (l959), likewise, found that respondents believed the press could play a decisive role in the outcome of a censorship incident, although the role rarely could be predicted.

A fast growing area of external influence are court rulings regarding censorship incidents. David Alexander (l980), writing for the National Organization on Legal Problems of Education three of seven federal court decisions reached during l972-l979 in the Second Circuit upheld school board decisions to remove materials from classrooms, libraries, or the curriculum. In three other federal cases, however, the First and Sixth Circuit courts held that First Amendment rights to freedom of speech necessarily implied a "freedom to receive" information and that removal of books once available on the grounds that their content was unacceptable abridged that freedom.

Serebnick (l979) indicated that only minimal attention had been given to many community demographic variables with the exception of size of population served.

Generalizing from the above, the independent variables in the External group will be the influence of:

• publicity generated about the incident
• pressure groups
• support groups
• community leaders
• judicial rulings/legislation
• prior censorship incidents in the community

The dependent variable is the school or library's reaction to the challenge. Reactions may range from immediate support of the challenge at the initial point it was made to overruling of the challenge at the highest hierarchical level within the system. The study will consider only schools or libraries which were successful in having the challenge overruled.

Koffka (l953) defined the environment not as it is, but as it is perceived and experienced. This phenomenological approach was expanded by Lewin's (l936) field theory of life space. Lewin defined behavior not as a function of the objective physical properties of the stimulus environment, but as environment transformed into an "innerworld" by a cognizing organism. Thus it is the psychological environment rather than the physical environment that determines the way an individual will respond.

Of the existing theories of person-environment interaction, some focus primarily on the subjective frame of reference. Others are less phenomenologically oriented. Barker's (l968) behavior settings theory and the subculture approach suggest that environments select and shape the behavior of people who inhabit them. Both are primarily concerned with describing the environment and fail to include a theoretical concept or operational definition of the individual. Astin and Holland (l96l) suggest that the dominant features of an environment are dependent upon the typical characteristics of its members. Although they view behavior as a function of the person and the environment, their theory emphasizes the person and neglects the perceptions of the environment.

The need/press/culture theory (Pace & Stern, l958) analyzes the person and the environment in terms of personality needs and perceptions of the environment. This theory is based on that of Lewin (l936) who contended that scientific psychology must take into account the "whole situation," defined as the state of both the person and the environment. Stern (l970) also has defined the important concepts of Murray's (l938) need/press model. In the broadest sense, the term "need" refers to denotable characteristics of individuals, including drives, motives, goals, etc. A need state is characterized by the tendency to perform actions of a certain kind. Environment is defined in terms of "presses." Press is defined as the characteristic demands or features of the environment as perceived by those who live in it. Thus the environment is defined as it is collectively perceived and reported by its participants. The frame of reference of this theory will support the procedures used in this study.

In order to measure student perceptions of college and university environments, Pace and Stern initially developed the College Characteristics Index (CCI). The CCI identifies environmental perceptions according to 30 scales (300 items). The content of the items is composed of the descriptions of activities, policies, procedures, attitudes, and impressions that may characterize college environments.

In his research efforts, Pace became increasingly concerned about the absence of crucial, personal information which would truly distinguish one college form another. After several years of work, he developed the College and University Environment Scales (CUES). The CUES is a direct outgrowth of the CCI. Using CCI scores from students in a "norm group" of 50 institutions, the 300 items were reduced by restructuring and selective elimination to 150 items and reorganized into five scales. The CUES measures perception along five (5) dimensions: practicality; community; awareness; propriety; and scholarship. Not only is the CUES less cumbersome for reporting purposes, it also provides a more parsimonious presentation of differences in college environments (Michael & Boyer, l965). This instrument, therefore, will be used in the present study.

Adult Learners Existing studies concerning life-long learning offer various definitions of the "adult learner." Most studies deal with students enrolled in continuing education programs. In this study, adult learners are defined as those persons 23 years of age or older enrolled in postsecondary education and registered for seven (7) or more credit hours.

Across the institutions and within them, adult learners compose a heterogeneous mixture of individuals. Different kinds of adults seek out different types of educational experiences. In consolidating data from four (4) reports for College Board, Arbeiter (l977) used six (6) demographic variables to indicate trends among these adult populations: age; sex; race; socioeconomic background; educational level; and rural/urban setting. In this study, these six (6) demographic variables will be used. One additional factor -- academic major -- will be considered.

Institutional Type

Colleges and universities differ greatly from one another in many measurable characteristics. In assessing factors related to the impact of higher education on student development, institutional type continues to be an important variable. Various conventional classification systems have been used. In a study of 935 colleges and universities, Rogoff (l957) first divided them by curricular organization and then by type of control. Other classifications have been made in terms of geographic location and the highest degree conferred by the institution. Although such nominal classifications are useful and at times unavoidable, they are not completely satisfactory as devices either to categorize colleges or to measure their environments (Barton, l96l).

Other investigators have sought to identify categories of colleges and universities that would be relatively homogeneous with respect to the functions of the institution, as well as with respect to characteristics of students and faculty members. In l970, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education developed such a classification system. The system divides institutions into five (5) main categories: (l) doctoral-granting institutions; (2) comprehensive universities and colleges; (3) liberal arts colleges; (4) two-year colleges and institutes; (5) professional schools and other specialized institutions. The present study will use this classification system with certain modifications. Specifically, environmental perceptions of adult learners enrolled in a research university II (subcategory of doctoral-granting institutions), a comprehensive university, and two (2) community colleges will be studied. Literature concerning community college students indicates that important differences exist between students attending urban institutions and those in rural institutions. For this reason, both types of community colleges will be included in this investigation.

There have been many research studies which have investigated the characteristic of innovativeness within groups. There have not been any which explore the distribution of this characteristic in populations primarily composed of women. The precedent for studying innovativeness has been to use self-report data superimposing categories such as Rogers' within a given time frame for the adoption of an innovation to occur within a social system.

This methodology may not give accurate information simply because of the inability of respondents to remember details as they actually happened. It may also be true that, depending upon the innovation in question, the respondent may wish to appear either more or less committed to the notion than he/she actually was.

For this purpose, of identifying innovative persons, Hurt, Joseph, and Cook devised an instrument which will predict the innovativeness of persons within a social group. Their instrument, though fairly new, and not well utilized on a variety of populations, has demonstrated high reliability where it has been used. (Nunnally's split half analysis yielded a reliability of .94). Based on a definition of innovativeness as "willingness to change" the authors recommend its use for the prediction of innovativeness as a single characteristic (Hurt, Joseph & Cook).

The tool has not been used, however, in conjunction with the more Rogerian self-report of actual practice changes and would be more useful if such a cross-validation were done. Similarly, other studies, geared at a predictive model, have established that certain characteristics are held in common by those who lean toward an innovative nature. Rogers has referred to these as "generalizations". They are attributes which seem highly associated with innovativeness and which might suggest a predictive model. Most of them were however established on a post-dictive inquiry methodology.

It is, therefore, desirable to combine the work of Hurt, Joseph and Cook, using their twenty-item index, and validate this index with a self-report measure of actual adoption of a given practice. Further it would serve useful purposes to select certain generalizations suggested by Rogers and examine the data produced to determine whether they are genuinely predictive of the innovative respondents. Similarly, it is advantageous to determine what socio-economic determinants may also interact with the respondent's degree of innovativeness.

The finer breakdown of this structure lends itself to a correlative study. By utilizing demographic information as in the Hollingshead two-factor index, and by incorporating the Pancratz and Pancratz index for Autonomy in Nursing Practice, it would be possible to identify specific characteristics of the individual respondents who are both innovative by self-report, and who are "willing to change" according to the Hurt, Joseph and Cook index.

This would allow for three kinds of variables to be superimposed upon the initial two-by-two. Demographic variables including the occupation, income, education, and age of both the respondent and the head-of-household would be available. Personal characteristics will include willingness to break with tradition, empathy, belief in practice autonomy, and cosmopolitanism. Finally, environmental characteristics identified as the degree of specialization in the work environment, size of agency or facility where employed, hours of work per week, and level of responsibility would be included.

The literature on organizational change indicates that to be effective an organization must not only maintain itself internally, but it must also adapt to its environment. An effective organization is stable yet able to change appropriately. Organizational health is a concept used to describe the degree to which an organization is capable of managing these two, somewhat

at opposing forces. (Owens 1981, p. 249) observed that in time organizations tend to become obsessed with maintaining themselves, increasing bureaucratic rigidity and seeking to shore up traditional practices. He labeled this an unhealthy organizational climate which tends to emphasize maintenance of the organization at the expense of its need for constant adaptability to keep pace with changing demands and expectations of the external environment. This description of organizational climate fits closely the dynamics Whetten (l98l) listed as responsible for institutions' passive responses to scarcity.

Those institutions which respond to scarcity with innovative changes can be viewed as having healthy organizational climates which enable them to adapt to changes in their environment.

One way to produce organizational change is through organizational self-renewal. An organization capable of self-renewal is characterized by: (l) a climate that values adaptability and responsiveness to change, open and upward communications, and problem-solving; (2) a set of clear-cut, explicit and well known procedures through which participants can engage in orderly, systematic, collaborative problem-solving; and (3) an ability to reach out appropriately for ideas and resources to help solve problems (Owens, l98l, p. 250). Rensis Likert (l96l) described ways of managing the interaction-influence system of the organization in ways that would stimulate creativity, promote growth of people in the organization, and facilitate a solution of the organization's problems. He labeled this "organizational climate" which could be measured through seven organizational processes: leadership, motivation, communication, interaction, decision-making, goal setting and control feedback (Likert and Likert, l976). Each of these processes can be evaluated in terms related to one of four "systems" of management ranging from System l, exploitive-authoritative to System 4, participative. The systems range from McGregor's (l960) Theory X to Theory Y views of motivation.

Likert (l977) found that institutions of higher education having administrative systems closer to System 4 than l experienced more favorable outcomes including innovativeness, which is the focus of this study. Although Smith (l977) did not document his findings, he reported that liberal arts colleges which were able to effect renewal possessed three necessary characteristics: (1) effective leadership, (2) enlistment of widespread support and (3) the unification of purpose and people. These findings suggest that differences in organizational climate and leader behavior should be related to institutional response to scarcity.

Owens' conditions for renewal address five of Whetten's dynamics which impede innovation: conservative efforts stress, trained incapacity of administrators to deal with decline, innovation resistant organizational structure, problem-solving based on efficiency data and crises leading to espousal of traditional values. Therefore, measures of organizational climate will produce information which will deal with the speculations raised in response to these factors. The other dynamic, the most innovative members of the organization leave first, is not a plausible explanation of differences in response to scarcity given today's limited opportunities for academics to change institutions.

One of the independent variables in this study will be organizational climate as measured by the Profile of Organizational Characteristics (Likert and Likert, l976, pp. 91-93). A second independent variable will be leader behavior as measured by the Profile of Leadership Behavior (Likert and Likert l976, pp.111-113). Because adapting institutions must continually assess and obtain feedback from their external environments, a third independent variable will be institutional external relations measured in three ways: (1) institution's public relations budget as a percentage of total budget, (2) percent of alumni participation and average gift in annual giving, and (3) percent of trustees who attend board meetings regularly and contribute annually.

The dependent variable will be response to scarcity at Liberal Arts Category II colleges. Measures of changes in six institutional characteristics during a four-year period from 1976-77 to l980-81 will be used to characterize colleges' responses to scarcity on a scale from passive to intermediate to innovative. The six characteristics are (1) size of student body, (2) addition and deletion of programs, (3) size of faculty, (4) total expenditures, (5) mission and goals and (6) interorganizational cooperative arrangements. These measures are similar to those used by Mayhew (l979, p. 87) in determining when an institution had ended a creases. Jonsen (l978) included several of these characteristics in defining criteria for success of liberal arts colleges in the eighties.

Several variables will be controlled. Institutions which have benefitted from unusual and unanticipated changes in their external environments, such as the closing of a competing institution or the receipt of a major gift or grant will be excluded. Institutions in which the response was precipitated by near insolvency will be excluded. Institutions which have undergone frequent and drastic changes in leadership will be treated separately.

Although only Liberal Arts II institutions will be included in the study, several differing characteristics of these institutions will be observed to determine their relationship to the dependent variable. These characteristics are rural or urban location, geographic region, institutional size, and single-sex or coeducational student body.

The findings of this study will be compared with the findings of two studies of innovation at liberal arts colleges. The Smith (l977) study and a study of colleges which had received funds for innovation from the Hill Family Foundation.

Example 5

In investigating teacher characteristics, one may focus on presage variables,process variables,or product variables (after Mitzel, cited in Soar, l964). Presage variables include personality variables or other characteristics of the teachers themselves. Field-independence/field-dependence can be considered a presage variable. Process variables describe the behavior of teachers in action. Teacher-student interaction and classroom climate are examples of process variables. Product variables refer to those changes which occur in students as a result of the teaching process. School achievement can be considered a product variable. Presage variables can be thought of as having some effect on process variables, both of which in turn affect product variables. As one moves from presage to process to product variables, a greater number of variables outside the teacher per se come into play. Process variables are a function of teacher characteristics, characteristics of the teaching environment, and characteristics of the students. Product variables are a function of all these clusters of variables as they interact over time, allowing for the effects of history and maturation to become important.

The problem posed here involves one presage variable, field-interdependence/field dependence, as it is related to the classroom behavior of teachers, and observed in process variables. Product variables lie outside the scope of this study.

As implied by the foregoing, it is unknown at present specifically what process variables one might observe which might differentiate field-independent and field-dependent teachers. The absence of clear conclusions from previous research suggests that a wide investigative net is appropriate. Of use here is the distinction made by Barker (l966) between the role of the investigator as operator and the role of the investigator as transducer. In the former role, the investigator controls the conditions of input to the subject, the conditions under which the subject performs, and the conditions of output from the subject. In the latter role, the investigator translates the phenomena of interest into data with relatively little control over input, context, and output. The investigator as operator contrives a closed system which specifies, among other things, that only certain types of output from the subject will become data. As transducer, the investigator strives to leave the system open which mans, among other things, that virtually any output from the subject has potential to become data. It seems clear that the nature of the problem posed is such that the role of the investigator as transducer is appropriate. Subsequent considerations of method will reflect this decision.

A significant dimension of the problem posed is the manner in which the environment is conceived. Willems (l973), Bronfenbrenner (l976), Moos (l973; l976) and Scott (l977) are among those who have grappled with this issue. Scott (l977) noted an absence of an agreed-upon theoretical framework but suggested that three clusters of work could be identified -- environmental psychology,ecological psychology,and ecosystem psychology.

Environmental psychology has tended to investigate physical and social variables as well as their effect on behavior. Here the concern is with such environmental characteristics as light, temperature, barometric pressure, noise, crowding, and population density as they affect human performance. Environmental psychology deals with behavior at a molecular level and employs traditional experimental methods.

Ecological psychology views behavior and the environment as interdependent, and is the behavior setting which consists of the time, place, and object props and their associated rules and roles of behavior. A classroom with its teacher, students, books, blackboards, chairs, syllabus, lecture notes, and explicit and implicit rules of behavior is a behavior setting. Ecological psychology studies molar behavior and uses naturalistic methods of inquiry.

Ecosystem psychology may be defined as the study of behavior as it is influenced by large social systems. Ecosystem psychology studies global, presumably group or organizational behavior. Organization development and process consultation are examples of ecosystem approaches.

These three clusters of work can be conceptually related within a number of common themes. One significant theme is the conception of the environment as a series of nested entities among which, although each obeys its own laws, mutual influences occur. Teachers and students, for example, are nested in classrooms, which are nested in departments or schools, which are nested in universities, and so on. Because of this conception of the environment, molecular, molar, and global views each have value, depending on the nature of the problem.

I contend that the view afforded by ecological psychology, and specifically by behavior setting theory, has the greatest potential for exploration of the problems posed here. Since the approach is in the middle range, further research can move in either the direction of molecular or global behavior. Further, the central concept of the theory, that of the behavior setting, can be applied to the analysis of the classroom environments within which the teacher functions. The utility of this concept can best be demonstrated after having explored the concept in greater detail.

A behavior setting is a naturally occurring unit which has two major components, the milieu or the time, space, and object props, and the standing pattern of behavior which describes the behavior of the participants en masse. An optional example of a behavior setting was provided by Barker (l963) in the Kurt Lewin Memorial Address he delivered in Philadelphia:

It is not often that a lecturer can present to his audience an example of his phenomena, whole and functioning in situ -- not merely with a demonstration, a description, a preserved specimen, a picture, or a diagram of it. I am in the fortunate postion of being able to give you, so to speak, a real behavior setting.

If you change your attention from me to the next most inclusive, bounded unit, to the assembly of people, behavior episodes, and objects before you, you will see a behavior setting. It has the following structural attributes which you can observe directly:

1. It has a space-time locus: 3:00-3:50 p.m., September 2, l963, Clover Room, Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

2. It is composed of a variety of interior entities and events: of people, objects (chairs, walls, a microphone, paper), behavior (lecturing, listening, sitting), and other processes (air circulation, sound amplification).

3. Its widely different components form a bounded pattern that is easily discriminated from the pattern on the outside of the boundary.

4. Its component parts are obviously not a random arrangement of independent classes of entities; if they were, how surprising that all the chairs are in the same position with respect to the podium, that all members of the audience happen to come to rest on the chairs, and that the lights are not helter-skelter from floor to ceiling, for example.

5. The entity before you is part of a nesting structure; its components (e.g., the chairs and people) have parts; and the setting, itself, is contained within a more comprehensive unit, the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel.

6. This unit is objective in the sense that it exists independently of anyone's perception of it, qua unit (p. 26).

By using Barker's behavior setting theory and its associated methods, a behavior setting can be described along a number of dimensions. Behavior settings can then be compared to one another. In addition, however, an important aspect of behavior settings is the way people who inhabit the setting are conceived. Barker (l978) explained the fundamental difference between behavior settings and their inhabitants:

People have two positions in behavior settings: they are components, and as such they behave in accordance with behavior setting requirements, but they are also inhabitants with unique needs and abilities, and as such they behave in accordance with the requirements of their own motives and perceptions (p. 200).

This perspective implies that the teacher plays a dual role. The teacher, like all the components of a behavior setting, is coerced and constrained by the requirements of the classroom behavior setting he or she inhabits. At the same time, the teacher acts in such a way that his or her plan of instruction, needs and motives are achieved. This perspective urges one, in considering differences between teachers who are relatively field-independent or field-dependent, to attend not only to the behavior of the teacher as actor, but also to the characteristics of the behavior settings within which the teachers' actions are enmeshed. One may find, for example, that field-independent and field-dependent teachers differ in terms of how they respond to the forces within the behavior settings they inhabit. To do this, the behavior settings must first by described. At the same time, one may find that these teachers differ in their plans for controlling the classroom behavior settings in which they act.

Behavior setting theory and its central concept allows one to investigate simultaneously the behavior of the individual teacher and the environment within which that behavior occurs. Since the problem posed suggests that the behavioral concomitants of field-independence/field-dependence are partly a function of the context within which the individual acts, then a framework which is applicable to both of these elements is necessary.

In summary, the present study will investigate one presage variable, that of the field-independence/field-dependence of teachers, as it takes form in the process variables which may be observed in the classroom. Since it is unknown what process variables might differentiate field-independent and field-dependent teachers, the investigator will take the role of the transducer. Further, since process variables are influenced by the context within which teaching occurs, the ecological perspective afforded by Barker's (l968; l978) behavior setting theory will be employed as a way of guiding the analysis of behavior and of the environment. This perspective appears to provide the greatest promise for exploration of the problem posed.

 Local educators like to feel that they are primarily responsible for the curriculum taught in
public schools and to claim that education is a local function responsive to the unique needs of children in a community.  In reality, though, local educational decisions, practices, and
performances are influenced by many external pressures and decisions, most of which are political in nature.  The goals of America 2000, the recommendations in the SCANS report for workplace "know-how," and the demand by some for a set of national educational standards demonstrate the increased attention given to restructuring the nation's educational system.

 The discipline of language arts currently serves as a good example of these and other
forces of external influences and pressures on local curricular decisions as well as instructional practices.  In 1992 the National Council on Education Standards and Testing (NCEST) concluded that "there do not already exist accepted standards in English/Language Arts for what should be taught, how it should be taught, or what students should know and be able to do" (p. H-1).  However, this report also notes that several national organizations are currently working on such standards.  NAEP recently devised a set of reading and writing frameworks for use with the 1994 assessments, administered in Spring 1994.  The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the International Reading Association (IRA), and the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois have been cooperatively awarded funds to develop standards such as those
recently developed for math.  Individual states are also developing state frameworks and
attempting to restructure both curriculum and assessment.  Congruency of content standards, performance standards, teaching practices, and assessment is an issue deserving serious time and effort on the part of educational leaders.

 Arkansas language arts educators, curriculum coordinators, and assessment specialists
face these national agendas as well as state-wide attempts to influence local educational practices.  The legislative mandates to restructure education found in Act 236 of 1991 and the transformation of course content guides into learner goals/curriculum frameworks "fleshed out"with local objectives and strategies all signal changes for the language arts classroom.  However, of more significance is the state-mandated change in "high stakes" assessment to include a direct writing assessment for students in grades 5, 9, and 11.

 As local teacher committees across Arkansas work to develop objectives and indicators
for the curriculum frameworks, they are caught in the middle of two forces--the external pressures noted above juxtaposed against the local philosophies and resources available to implement the developed curriculum.  For example, if language arts teachers (as well as those in other disciplines) are apprehensive about teaching or evaluating student compositions, the curriculum decisions will be different than if they value writing and feel comfortable about evaluating student work.  Likewise, language arts indicators for learner outcomes will vary from district to district depending upon the philosophy, training, and skills of the local staff.  Teachers operating from a traditional base will probably continue to emphasize basic skills exercises and/or a product-oriented approach to composition.  Those trained through the Arkansas Writing Project, integrated language arts classes, or other current methodology instruction will likely favor the newer process-oriented approach measured by authentic assessments, such as portfolios.  Even after a local language arts curriculum is in place, its use in classrooms throughout the district depends, to a large extent, upon each individual teacher's attitude toward writing and knowledge
or skill necessary for its practical implementation.

 Based upon an international study reported by Takala and Degenhart (1988), one would
expect classroom practices in teaching writing to fall within four broad categories, three of which have traditionally been present in classrooms and only one of which is consistently congruent with current Arkansas restructuring efforts and state-mandated assessment decisions.  Upon closing their classroom doors, teachers have always had the option of ignoring or de-emphasizing teaching writing skills in favor of some other subject or topic (i.e., literature or reading) they deem more important.  A second grouping includes those teachers who decide to stress only the writing "pre-requisite" skills of grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure.  Whether their rationale is a lingering pre-occupation with basic skills, a perceived lack of time to "grade" compositions, or a professed lack of knowledge about how to teach writing, some language arts teachers opt for drill and practice exercises in recognizing correct editing conventions of writing rather than for practice in authentic writing tasks.  A third grouping of classroom practices includes those teachers who do assign compositions, but who focus on evaluating the finished product rather than teaching the process of pre-writing, composing, revising, and editing.  Their
students do have practice in writing, but are often uncertain about how to accomplish the tasks or about the criteria upon which the teacher assigns the grade.  The only group of teachers in sync with the current external influences impacting language arts instruction and assessment in Arkansas focus on the process of composing, affording students the opportunity to practice realistic tasks involving writing and to learn to self-assess their own writing by becoming familiar with established criteria and techniques.

 Each of these categories of classroom practices obviously impacts the nature and quality
of students' writing experiences and opportunity to learn the skills assessed on the Arkansas Direct Writing Assessment.  In turn, the quality of those experiences--i.e., whether students participate in collaborative activities, write in contexts outside the English classroom, practice self-assessment, view the tasks as authentic and meaningful--is very likely related to the students' attitude toward writing, their confidence in their ability to write well, and their competence in performing writing tasks.  Various classroom practices may produce different levels of student competence in writing across topics, for diverse audiences, and for different purposes.  It is significant that students participating in the 1984 NAEP writing assessment indicated that they valued the importance of writing, but revealed that their enthusiasm for writing gradually decreased as they progressed from elementary school to high school (Applebee et al., 1986).

 All of these variables--from the external influences impacting local decisions to teachers'
implementation of those decisions in the classrooms to students' response to those instructional strategies--are linked to student performance on a large-scale assessment such as the Arkansas Direct Writing Assessment.  The part each plays, however, is unclear.  Guskey (1994) points out the dichotomy of standardized achievement measures and performance assessment as they influence instructional practice.  He says the former tend to narrow instruction so that teachers teach to the test.  The latter, however, broaden the scope of instruction and may not impact teaching practices to the same degree.  Viewing the impact from another perspective, Baker (1994) warns that "some thought must be given to the relationship between assessment and instruction, and the validity criterion of instructional sensitivity" (p. 60).  She argues that, unless instruction affects performance on alternative assessments, educators may risk, at the least, misguided inferences about the reasons for differences in performance and, at the most, inequitable consequences for individual students in high-stakes assessments.

 Thus, once student outcomes are documented, the kinds of influences these bring to bear
are two-fold.  They may have the effect of altering classroom practices--the goal of those
proponents of MDI--Measurement Driven Instruction.  The may also have an impact on the external influences by confirming or refuting the assumptions and/or needs underlying the decisions of policymakers.

 An overview of this conceptual framework is illustrated in Figure 1, and the logic is as
follows.  External influences on instruction and assessment are listed in the oval on the far left; these include national goals and standards, legislative mandates, state-adopted learner goals and curriculum frameworks, and assessment decisions made above the district level.  All of these are sometimes influenced by student outcomes on the assessment tools over a period of time.

 As local educators define curriculum objectives for each district, they must consider both
the external influences and the staff who will implement these objectives in the classrooms.
Teachers' knowledge and skills as well as their attitudes can affect the instructional practices used in the classroom to afford students the opportunity to learn the skills necessary to master the objectives.  Over time, the students' performance on the assessment measure will impact classroom practices by revealing strengths and weaknesses to teachers and administrators.  What happens in the classroom has a major impact on  students' opportunity to learn, both in the experiences they incur with the skills being assessed and in the attitudes they develop toward the skills as a result of the instructional practices and evaluations being used by teachers.

 Student performance on an assessment such as the Arkansas Direct Writing Assessment is a result of all of these factors.  However, like many of the variables, it is both influenced by various decisions, practices, and attitudes and, in turn, influences decisions and practices.  Unless congruency exists throughout this model, the assessment cannot be considered a valid measure of what students know and can do.  The design of this study, as depicted by the model in Figure 1, places the two major variables of classroom practices and student outcomes within the context of the other intervening variables and posits the overarching theoretical perspective that will guide the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data.