Executive skills are the cognitive abilities that make it possible for people to set goals, regulate impulses, and complete the steps necessary to achieve their objectives. Examples of these skills include time management, emotional control, and organization. Richard Guare and Peggy Dawson have developed a coaching strategy based on executive…

Errors bear the potential to improve knowledge acquisition, provided that learners are able to deal with them in an adaptive and reflexive manner. However, learners experience a host of different--often impeding or maladaptive--emotional and motivational states in the face of academic errors. Research has made few attempts to develop a theory that…

This chapter examines development through different life transitions, such as educational transitions and transition to parenthood during adolescence to adulthood in the context of the life-span model of personal goals. According to the life-span model of motivation, four key mechanisms--channeling, choice, co-regulation, and compensation--play a…

This article describes the early outcomes of an ongoing project at the University of South Florida in Tampa that involves using a logistics regression formula derived from pre-matriculation characteristics to predict the risk of individual student attrition. In this piece, the authors will describe the results of the prediction formula and the…

This paper defines a broad model of the psychosocial climate in educational settings. The model was developed from a general theory of learning environments, on a theory of human values and on empirical studies of children's evaluations of their schools. The contents of the model are creativity, stimulation, achievement, self-efficacy, creativity,…

This article describes an in-class activity that helps undergraduate students to understand the effects of their socio-economic position on the formulation, pursuit, and achievement of goals. Social stratification and inequality have an initial impact on the formulation of goals. Through this exercise students will perceive the effects of having a…

A survey of the district's elementary principals and teachers and of the substitutes working at two elementary schools indicated that substitute teachers should be evaluated, that an inservice program for substitutes was needed to help provide information and direction that could improve their overall effectiveness, and that there was strong…

Educators in Indiana's Duneland School District found the transition from elementary schools to a newly organized middle school unacceptably difficult for both the students and their parents. After assessing student and parent preconceptions of the middle school as revealed in their responses to questionnaires, the middle school principal…

This article focuses on three general areas of research on achievement goal theory, including the definition and role of achievement goals, the role of contextual goals and factors, and the measurement and induction of goals. Issues regarding the definition of achievement goals include the generality of the approach/avoid dimension and the…

Results of evaluating the June 1987 orientation program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington are discussed and compared to findings of the 1986 orientation program evaluation. Items that were ranked as the four highest and four lowest aspects of orientation are identified. Orientation leader effectiveness is also assessed, along with…

The primary purpose of this study was to identify and profile attitudes and evaluative semantic differentials evidenced by young people in the six districts of Micronesia. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Eight attitudinal dimensions were measured: support of school and school related values, support of United States policy in…

The primary purpose of this study was to identify and profile attitudes and evaluative semantic differentials evidenced by young people in the six districts of Micronesia. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Eight attitudinal dimensions were measured: support of school and school related values, support of United States policy in…

This report on a Comprehensive Community Child Care (4C) pilot project to train family day care providers describes the step-by-step procedures for setting up, operation and assessment of the program. The program was conducted primarily through home visits and group meetings, with extensive use of handout materials. Sixty voluntary participants,…

Describes a public library program designed to stimulate appreciation of adult fiction written in and about the contemporary western United States. Discussion covers project objectives, oral interpretation of literature, project phases, study guides and bibliographies, staff orientation, lectures, evaluators, personnel, publicity, problems, and…

More than 8,000 secondary school students participated in the AFS International exchange programs in 1983, and this document examines some of the research that investigates the impact of travel abroad and intercultural experiences on personality development. Cigdem Kagitcibasi, in a study of the effects of a 10-month program on student…