This document reports the second year of Project IMPACT (Innovation and Motivation in Polk County for the Advancement of Creative Teaching), an ESEA Title III inservice program concerned with the need to "humanize" the process of education and the need to develop innovative teaching methods which will aid productive thinking and minimize…

An Arab Culture Assimilator, basically a branching type of learning program, was administered to forty-seven subjects in two groups involved in a cross-cultural field study in order to determine the differing effects of varied social reinforcement on learning performance. The conditions of reinforcement were: correct, positive; incorrect,…

In a 1973 Smithsonian behavioral science project, observational methods were used to record school group behaviors during docent guided tours in the National Museum of History and Technology. The purpose of this exploratory study was to reveal the natural museum habitat and criterion behaviors of visiting fourth through sixth graders. Children's…

A descriptive summary of research at the University of Texas into the relationship between anxiety and performance is presented. Relevant research on the concepts of worry, emotionality, and state anxiety is reviewed. An instructional context involving a computer-managed course in educational psychology is described, along with the methodology…

Students who work in small discussion groups will not significantly surpass those who study under teacher direction in terms of mean learning achievement, cognitive operations such as comprehension and application, or acquired learning. This conclusion resulted from a study of learning in two classroom situations, one utilizing teacher-directed…

Reported is a study related to diagnosing elements of propositional thinking in the cognitive functioning of 62 sixth- and seventh-grade students. The rationale is based on the work of Piaget and others. Instruments used to diagnose levels of abstract thinking involved using computer simulated experiments (CSE). The direct and indirect effects of…

The school curriculum should be reappraised, and new guidelines developed, establishing different levels of achievement for pupils of different abilities. The increase in the understanding of the psychology of learning is one of the great accomplishments of the last one hundred years. Some years ago it was generally believed that much of what…

Digraphs, graphs and task analysis were used to map out the content structure of a programed text (SMSG) in elementary probability; mathematical structure was operationally defined as the relationship between concepts within a set of abstract systems. The word association technique (WA) and paragraph construction technique (PC) were used to…

This study was designed to explore one method of intervening in the process of a conventional academic classroom to affect student attitude and improve the learning climate. Two college freshman composition classes of 22 students each provided the subjects for the study. Each class was taught by the same instructor for three hours a week; one…

One of the basic problems in relating learning theories to instructional strategies is that traditionally learning theory has researched the micro unit whereas the instructional environment studies the macro unit. Traditionally, instructional strategy research and development takes the learner as he comes, an integrated organism. In learning…

Research conducted at Cornell University over the past decade suggests seven different learning competency factors are more pertinent to ineffective learning at the secondary school and college levels than reading competency. The Cornell Learning and Study Skills Inventory (CLASSIC) was developed to assess these factors, to serve as a means for…

The present study was designed to determine whether conservation of number, weight, volume, area, and mass could be learned and retained by disadvantaged preschool children when taught by an inexperienced classroom teacher. An instructional sequence of 10-minute lessons was presented on alternate days over a 3 1/2 week period by preservice…

This study continues the investigation of the general organizational plan used by good motor learners in acquiring a complex motor skill (tennis serve). The General Serve Problem Solving Model (GSPS), developed in earlier research, was utilized in an effort to improve and broaden it so that other types of learners may be studied and compared. Six…

In this progress report of an interdisciplinary consortium effort, Project 2, Literature Search in Reading, funded by USOE's Targeted Research and Development Program in Reading, the author summarizes the project objectives, milestones, and strategies used to accomplish these milestones. The objectives as reported are (1) to identify and evaluate…

New social studies curricula and methods need to be adapted to fundamental aims of education -- the stimulation of cognitive and moral development. Educational implications of Piaget's work in cognitive stage development and the author's work in moral stage development are based upon the cognitive developmental transition of John Dewey, who…