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Previous research has established that attracting and retaining members is a significant challenge associated with the formation and maintenance of interest groups. Research has also established that interest groups play a significant role in the formation of educational policy. This study will attempt to provide insight as to those factors that influenced members to join one such association--the Illinois Principals Association (IPA). The IPA offers potential members a range of incentives to become involved in the organization. The focus of this study is twofold: (1) to identify the relative significance of material, associative, policy and district incentives in the decision of members to join the IPA and (2) to determine if disaggregated groups of the sample report different significance associated with any of the four incentives. A review of data demonstrated that material incentives were the biggest inducement for members with policy and associative incentives also contributing in statistically significant but descending levels of importance. Analysis of disaggregated groups of the sample demonstrated that associative incentives were statistically more significant for principals who served in leadership roles within the IPA and those coming from districts with fewer schools. Associative and material incentives were also found to be valued in descending importance by rural, suburban and urban principals.

This report describes a plan for developing metacognitive reflection in readers in order to improve reading comprehension in both fiction and nonfiction texts. The targeted population was sixth graders at two sites: one in an upper middle-class neighborhood of a large city, the other in a rapidly changing community in a collar suburb of that same city. The problems with reading comprehension are documented through data gathered from classroom, district, and state assessments. Analysis of pre-intervention data revealed that students exhibited a lack of comprehension skills related to both cognitive and metacognitive processing. The students lacked the ability to reflect on their own thinking processes while reading. The students also exhibited a lack of motivation to read and little conscious involvement in the reading process. They lacked the ability to transfer comprehension strategies to other content area subjects. Probable cause literature supported the findings of the pre-intervention assessments. A review of the literature suggesting possible solutions, in addition to analysis of the local settings, suggested the need for metacognitive reflection in order to enhance cognitive reading processes and strategies. This reflective process was developed through four inter-related activities taught in a specific sequence. These activities promoted active thinking during reading, provided a visual coding system to represent this thinking, and encouraged metacognitive reflection of the reading process. Post-intervention data, both objective and anecdotal, indicated an increase in metacognitive reading strategies and skills, coupled with increased motivation and emotional involvement in the reading process. Appendixes contain permission letters, pretests, metacognitive reading surveys and tally sheets, posttests, coding teacher instruments, reflection connection teacher instruments, anecdotal record forms, and sample reader response journal entries. (Contains 3 tables and 12 figures of data.) (Author/RS)