THIS ARTICLE DESCRIBES the PT3 Implementation Grant at the University of Rhode Island's School of Education and the impact it had on students' confidence in using technology for teaching. The three-year project focused on working with faculty from the School of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences to integrate technology into their instruction and improve the supervision of pre-service teachers. The goal was to provide exemplary models of pedagogically sound technology use that were embedded in core teacher education courses, and not through a stand-alone "technology for teachers" course. A technology confidence survey was administered to students in the teacher education program at the end of each semester of the three-year project. Data from the survey were analyzed to look at change in attitudes over time as students progressed through the teacher education program. Results show a significant increase in students' confidence in six areas of technology use in teaching, the majority of which were a focus of the project's training and support of university instructors.

No abstract

This research explored the relationship between targets' resistance and leaders' behaviors. Barbuto's concentric zones, Preference, Indifference, Legitimate, Influence, and Noninfluence, were used as the independent variables to predict leaders' use of influence tactics. Results from 83 leader-member dyads imply moderate relationships between perceptions of followers' resistance and influence tactics used by leaders. Directions for research are addressed.

No abstract

We all have had those learning experiences where what we learned is indelibly imprinted on our brains forever. One of those learnings happened in graduate school when I first was introduced to Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience. Dale indicated you can increase the proportion of how much people will remember by increasing the mix of methods by which you teach them. They will remember 10 percent of what they read, 20 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they see, 50 percent of what they hear and see, 70 percent of what they say or write and 90 percent of what they say as they do a thing.Action research and action learning require individuals to get involved in the process of questioning and seeking the answers to those questions. Too often the paradigm that we have lived under has been one where adult education practitioners ev~~~hat we do based on research from someone else, or based on our own research. All the literature on the reflective practitioner tells us that we need to examine our practice by getting involved in the examining process.Thus, regardless of their setting, adult educators need to be in the middle of questioning what they do, how they do itand how they can do itbetter. The key to action research is: we do not need to rely on someone else to conduct the research. Instead, we can formulate the questions, structure the research design, collect our own data and analyze the results. These research findings then become essential to influencing our practice.Of course many would balk atthe prospect of being involved in research because of the image itconjures inour minds-having to figure out data collection methodologies, and the epitome of horrors, statistics. In realit; action research is not complex or horrible. Itis a contextual and meaningful qualitative and/or quantitative experience. In fact, after graduate students complain about not understanding research methodologies, my advice is simple: I usually tell them to get involved insome research that is meaningful to them. In that wa~they will have some ownership of both the process and the product. Action research allows practitioners to have this type of relationship with the research process.The collection of articles inthis issue show how action research can and has been used successfully in a variety of adult education settings, in both the public and private sectors.