Improving competence requires practicing, e.g. by solving tasks. The Self-Assessment task type is a new form of scalable online task providing immediate feedback, sample solution and iterative improvement within the newly developed SAFRAN plugin. Effective learning not only requires suitable tasks but also their meaningful usage within the…

On the basis of the role and the social exchange theories, this research investigated the direct and indirect antecedents of three dimensions of team performance (proficiency, adaptivity, proactivity) developed through cooperative education. The theoretical model examined how proactive socialization behaviors led to team socialization and team…

Our learning-by-teaching environment, Betty's Brain, captures a wealth of data on students' learning interactions as they teach a virtual agent. This paper extends an exploratory data mining methodology for assessing and comparing students' learning behaviors from these interaction traces. The core algorithm employs sequence mining techniques to…

The authoritarian/permissive dimension of hypnosis refers to the manner in which hypnotic suggestions are phrased. In the authoritarian mode suggestions imply the subject is under control of the hypnotist; permissive suggestions are phrased to emphasize the subject's own thinking. To compare the permissive suggestions of the Creative Imagination…

The reactions of observers (N=168 college students) to an actor's embarrassment were examined by manipulating the perceived link between actor and observer (cooperative, competitive, or independent) and the observational set of the observer (empathic or nonempathic). The observers' self-ratings of embarrassment and measures of their skin potential…

The contribution of a structured procedure designed to facilitate the generalization of assertive behavior was examined. Subjects solicited from the community (N=48) were assigned to an assertion training plus generalization instructions (AT Plus), an assertion training only (AT Only), or an attention-placebo control condition. Both behavioral…

Cheating behavior has been found to relate to emotion-attribution explanations. Prior research with second-grade children has indicated that increased self-control occurs in a watching task when the child's emotional response is attributed to internal rather than external actions. In the present study, freshman women (N=221) took a reading…

This study was designed to see if preservice elementary teachers having undergone a training intervention on business-like behavior can significantly increase their observable level of business-like behavior and maintain the level of increase ten weeks after training. The observed level of warmth was also monitored in relationship to the training…

This study investigated infant crying as a form of communication, with fear considered only one of many possible motivating emotions. Crying, along with fretting and withdrawal, are the major ways infants have to indicate that they desire to change the present situation. Subjects were 91 white, middle class infants whose mothers wete their primary…

Children's responses to stressful events are discussed in this paper. The paper describes children's feelings about and reactions to death, divorce, hospitalization and parent imprisonment. School phobias are also discussed. Age differences in reactions to these crises are described and discussed in terms of general cognitive development and…

Skills training, personal-emotional development, and cognitive development are areas of importance in counselor training and education. Emotion, defined as the counselor's experiencing a strong feeling accompanied by physiological activity and the interruption, however momentary, of the counselor's ongoing cognition, is a critical factor in…

Three studies investigating the behavior of nonhandicapped people in the presence of handicapped individuals and a possible tactic for reducing the nonhandicapped individual's discomfort are reported. In Studies One and Two, nonhandicapped Ss watched two videotapes of paraplegics in wheelchairs being interviewed. Each S then chose the handicapped…

The relationship between perceived freedom and the attribution of attitudes was investigated. Observers were asked to infer an attitude from an actor's behavior when the actor's behavioral freedom was ambiguous. Attributions of attitude corresponded less to the behavior when it was unexpected and when the actor's potential lack of freedom was made…

The effect of externally-mediated goal setting on intrinsic motivation was examined using a laboratory assembly task. College male subjects (N=80) were randomly assigned in a factorial design including two conditions of goal setting (assigned vs. no goals) and two conditions of initial task interest (interesting vs. boring task). The results show…

The Perception of Baby Temperament Scales (PBT) were used to elicit parental perceptions of infant temperament, with the results rated for internal consistency and congruence between parents. Data was obtained from 26 families, with both father and mother describing their first-born infants at five months of age. The PBT Scales deal with a range…