Interviews with 55 new Lecturers at an Australian university focussed upon early experiences in the institution and attitudes and perceptions regarding teaching and student evaluations. Interview data were used to describe the induction perceived by the Lecturers. Expectations for induction experiences and based on background characteristics of Lecturers were used as criteria in one form of evaluation of the induction process. Evidence of effects of induction processes upon orientations to teaching was used as a second form of evaluation. Help in learning about the institution and special consideration in workload were found to favour the more academically qualified rather than the reverse. Help in solving problems favoured the less academically qualified, those without employment experience in the university, those appointed on probation and those with less impressive publication records. Some evidence was found that special consideration in workload, and the perception of unexpected opportunities were conducive to desirable orientations to teaching. Lecturers who were less self-assured about their teaching competence tended to report participation in development activities more than others.

Nine types of errors occurring in three stages of the process of synthesizing research are described and illustrated with examples from a recent synthesis (Kagan, 1992) of research on teacher professional growth. Errors can occur in the initial identification and collection of reports of research, in the analysis of documents, and in the final stage of reaching generalizations about the whole body of research. Types of errors include the exclusion of relevant literature, wrongly reporting details such as sample size, erroneously attributing findings to studies, and stating unwarranted conclusions about the research reviewed. Implications for reviewers and users of reviews are considered.In the last 20 years a large body of literature on ways of synthesizing research in education has developed (Dunkin, 1994;Walberg, 1986). Approaches to gleaning the accumulated findings of that research have varied from the narrative through vote counting or box scores to meta-analysis. Some of these approaches make more demands on the conceptual and interpretative skills of the synthesizer than others and, therefore, contain more scope for error and bias than others, although all approaches are subject to the fallibility of the synthesizers and those upon whom they necessarily rely. It is important that the validity of all syntheses be tested, for they are the main ways in which assessments can be made about the accumulation and development of research-based knowledge.Syntheses of research are influential in regard to subsequent research, policy, and practice. They provide the empirical bases for applications for research grants, for higher-degree dissertations and theses, and for individual and institutional research. They are used by policymakers in designing strategies for development, and they are used to guide practitioners in the enhancement of professional activity. They provide the contents of highly regarded publications in handbooks, encyclopedias, and textbooks and become the best known statements of the state of knowledge on the topics to which they are addressed.The processes by which syntheses of research are conducted and disseminated are, therefore, crucially important, because they determine the quality of the syntheses and which syntheses are available publicly for the above purposes. If the synthesizers allow systematic biases to affect their selection of studies to review,

Twelve recipients of awards for excellence in teaching at The University of Sydney provided interview responses to a series of questions designed to tap their conceptual repertoires regarding teaching effectiveness and the evaluation of teaching. Their responses were compared to those of two groups of novice university teachers from the same university. The award-winners were found to have more complex and flexible concepts of teaching effectiveness, to use a wider range of criteria in evaluating their teaching and to rely more on personal feelings, the evaluative judgements of others and longer term student learnings than the novices. They were also more inclined to adopt systematic, formal procedures for obtaining feedback and to use it in changing their teaching than the novices.

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This study of the orientations to teaching of academic staff used a sample of 32 new Lecturers matched in pairs on sex, initial tenure status, and discipline type. Interviews were conducted to obtain data on their early experiences in the university and on their orientations to teaching, including their conceptual repertoires, self-efficacy and attitudes to receiving and using student evaluations of their teaching. Findings were that orientations to teaching and early experiences were similar to those reported in an earlier study, though there was a greater participation in professional development activities in this later group.Induction experiences were found to be associated with the entering differences in background characteristics among the Lecturers. In particular, special consideration in workload varied according to sex, initial tenure status and discipline type, while participation in development activities varied according to discipline type. Induction experiences and background characteristics were found to be associated with self-efficacy measures.