The correlation between positive and negative group interactions and one or another of individuals' attitudes or characteristics--moral development, critical thinking, resilience, and self efficacy--has been examined previously. However, no systemic examination of individuals' development of patterns of these characteristics and those patterns'…

This paper uses the story of the Wizard of Oz to help explain and understand the vital characteristics and capabilities of a holistic teacher: knowledge, caring and courage. It explores the process of human development as an outcome of developing these faculties and explains their interrelationship so that educators and their students might better…

Recently, methodologists interested in examining problems associated with measuring change have suggested that developmental researchers should focus upon assessing change at both intra-individual and inter-individual levels. This study used an application of individual growth curve analysis to the problem of maternal postpartum depression.…

This paper presents a rationale for using a biographical approach in understanding how teachers think and act and how they have come to think and act in the way they do. This approach is seen as being able to provide a fundamental understanding of the teacher's perspective. Understanding how teachers individually and collectively think, act,…

Symbolic interactionists have proposed that one's self-concept is primarily affected by interactions with others to the extent and in the way one perceives those interactions. According to this perspective, an individual's global self-esteem is largely the result of subjective "reflected appraisals" of others' evaluations of him rather…

Factors which aid an individual's progression from one stage of moral reasoning to another remain a mystery. Theorists suggest that intraception, defined as a predominance of feeling, fantasy, and aspirations (connoting a humanistic outlook and an ability to develop role-taking skills) as opposed to a down-to-earth, skeptical attitude, may be an…

Elements leading to resilience or non-resilience in 10 undergraduate students who had been diagnosed as having a learning disability (LD) were studied. Subjects were labeled as either "resilient" or "non-resilient" depending on their grade point average in their major field. Themes which emerged as common experiences of…

In order to give the psychological conception of alienation greater cogency relative to the influence of sociological alienation, research is needed that ties alienation attitudes to individual personal behavior. It was hypothesized that the stronger the alienation attitudes of people, the weaker will be their exploratory behavior. Thus,…

The importance of role models for women achieving career success has received increased attention; however, there has been little agreement on a definition of the concept. To determine who college women say their role models are and to determine developmental discontinuities in women's reports of their role models, 377 college women completed two…

The relationship between personal development and mastery of instructional skills in a preservice teacher education program was studied. The sample of 80 students were in elementary, early childhood, and special education programs. Questions posed were: (1) How well do the personal development instruments describe the students? (2) Are there…

The relative influence of selected life history experiences on the development of three vocational types (investigative, social, and enterprising) proposed by J. L. Holland is studied using causal modeling procedures. The lack of explicitness in the developmental postulates of Holland's theory is seen as a major deficiency. Among the principal…

This study identified changes in prospective teachers' (N=153) concerns about teaching as they progressed through teacher training, and investigated the relationship between these changes and the prospective teachers' Myers-Briggs personality preferences, Rotter's locus of control orientation, and selected personal attributes. It was found that…

A study investigated the process of giving interpersonal feedback in two continuing human relations groups to determine (1) the proportion of feedback perceived as useful for personal and interpersonal development, (2) the relationship between giving feedback that is perceived as useful and receiving that feedback, and (3) the relationship between…

The growing concern for the development of teenagers has brought up issues regarding the role of the family system in shaping the personality traits of children. Alfred Adler (1870-1937), an Austrian psychiatrist who introduced the psychological/therapeutic model, "Individual Psychology," highlighted the importance of birth order…

In an effort to provide a better understanding of the possible impact of teacher training upon aspiring teachers, this study was designed to ascertain whether prospective teachers' longitudinal changes in attitude, anxiety, and confidence about teaching were related to, or possibly influenced by, their locus-of-control orientation, personality…