Based on an MA thesis (Ahammer) submitted to West Virginia University.

Gives step-by-step guidelines for planning, designing, and writing useful training manuals for task performance and equipment operation. Steps include finding out what the worker needs to know to do the job, organizing materials in proper sequence, stating precise operations, and then trying out the instructions. (MF)

Four pursuit-tracking experiments were conducted in an attempt to replicate with adults, Hockey's findings that loud noise increases attentional selectivity. Neither attentional selectivity nor masking of auditory feedback was found to be significant. For Hockey's reply and the authors' rejoinder, see p499-506 of this issue. (SJL)

A replication study was conducted to determine whether conservation-of-number performance would be improved by questioning the subject only after the transformation is performed, rather than before and after the transformation, as is done in the standard conservation test. Subjects were preschoolers, aged 0-4 to 5-7. (Author/MP)

Investigates the relationship between task persistence, locus of control, self-reinforcement, and specific expectancies in elementary school children. (CM)

Examines the effects of reward contingency and positive performance feedback on subsequent intrinsic motivation for an enjoyable task. Subjects were 93 high school students. (CM)

Two experiments examined the hypothesis that the optimum precision level of knowledge of results for motor learning varies as a direct function of age. Subjects were first, third, fifth and ninth graders. (CM)

This study examines an extreme case of the influence of motives on memory. Eight-year-old children judged which of two sentences had been read to them 10 days earlier for 20 sentence pairs. (CM)

Task analysis procedures are used to determine the instructional importance of job tasks, and objectives are structured directly from task analysis information. The author examines the translation of this information into instructional outcomes and the determination of the functional relationship between job tasks and instructional components. (MF)

Describes an attempt to use a commercial social skills training kit to teach role taking to a mixed group of 58 children in grade 1 and a combined class of grades 3 and 4. (CM)

Review of 1978 research in the field of vocational behavior and career development. Traditional variables receive attention; e.g., Holland's theory, interests, job satisfaction, performance, and women's movement. Other emerging variables stimulating research were the life-span aspects of careers and interventions in career development. (Author)

This study explores sex and race bias in job performance appraisal. After a brief review of the literature in the area, the authors investigate the job performance appraisal techniques of supervisors at a particular government agency in the Southeast. (Author)