This study involved the manipulation of question-asking in a learning task. The hypothesis that learners should ask the most questions when their knowledge was well-matched to the level of presentation was tested, using two levels of background knowledge and two levels of difficulty of material to be learned. The more simple instructional…

To investigate change in the general self concept of ability of educable mentally retarded special class students, four equally spaced interviews were conducted with 51 students (mean age 11.63) over a 2-year period. Pupils answered questions about their academic ability from the General Self-Concept of Ability Scale; scores showed an ascending…

A study relating mothers' language styles and techniques of family control to children's cognitive development was conducted with 163 urban Negro mothers from the lower and middle classes and their 4-year-old children. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) There was a significant negative correlation between responses of status-oriented…

The required annual report on compensatory programs funded by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Title I, describes California's efforts in the first full year of operation. In general, the programs sought to raise reading and verbal performance levels, improve performance as measured by achievement tests, and also improve students'…

Nine conference papers discuss the psychology of deafness. They include seven papers from the United States: "Deafness: The Interdependent Variable" by M. Vernon and D. A. Rothstein, "The Reliability and Construct Validity of the Self-Concept of Academic Ability Scale-Form D for Hearing Impaired Students" by L. M. JOINER,…

This is the fifth in the second series of general bibliographies developed to disseminate information on documents analyzed at the ERIC Information Analysis Center for Science Education. Reported are some 76 citations of selected documents related to student achievement in science. The documents included represent research reports, research…

Forty blind children (ages 6 to 14, IQ's 65 to 132) in residential schools were studied to discover the relationship of verbalism to age, intelligence, experience, and personal adjustment. The children were given 40 selected words to obtain definitions, experience claims, and visually oriented verbalism scores. They then tried to identify items…

Research on client characteristics is reviewed. The degree of disturbance, client expectations, social and economic attributes, race, sex, intellectual variables, and the nature of the presenting problem are all shown to interact with treatment method in determining the outcome of counseling. Several specific recommendations are made: (1) Behavior…

This address to school counselors discusses the role of aptitude and attitudes in learning French as a second language with attention to the senior elementary and high school levels. The Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) and the Attitude Motivation Inventory (ATI) were administered to students. The MLAT and abilities it is designed to assess…

This module on assessing students' personal characteristics is one of a set of seven on vocational students and is part of a larger series of thirty-four modules constituting a core curriculum intended for use in the professional preparation of vocational educators in the areas of agricultural, business, home economics, and industrial education.…

Sixty-five grade 5-6 children were tested on a verbal recall task involving material of varying semantic and syntactic content. There was no difference between best and poorest readers in their performance on random lists of words, but there were clear differences on meaningful sentences and on syntactically well-formed but semantically anomalous…

This paper reports on a pilot study conducted to determine the possible use of the cloze procedure as a substitute measure of achievement in a second-year Spanish culture and civilization class. Twenty students enrolled in a third-semester Spanish class at the University of Colorado were simultaneously given multiple choice tests and cloze tests…

This newsletter contains five articles. The first, "Discourse Structure in Reading," by Ron Shook, suggests that reading materials for the beginning ESL (English as a second language) reader often have three defects: (1) profusion of detail as question fodder; (2) an oversimplified syntax; and (3) an artificial construction that violates…

A sample of high school seniors was surveyed in spring 1972 to provide baseline data for the NCES National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. The First-Followup Survey of this sample took place in fall 1973. This report describes how these young adults changed during this period of about 1-1/2 years with regard to their view of…

This evaluation focuses on a comprehensive arts and reading enrichment program for socially and economically deprived inner city adolescents who are performing two years below grade level in reading and/or mathematics. One hundred children participated in this six month program considered to be strongly oriented toward reading improvement. A…