Examined the teaching behaviors of 37 Mexican American mothers using an everyday task and a school-related task. Findings indicated that for the everyday tasks, mothers relied on various verbal utterances to guide their children to task completion, whereas for school-related tasks, they relied on nonverbal instructional behaviors. (TJQ)

Discusses student learning behavior in two history classes. Suggests that many students do not understand the culture of college and inadvertently violate simple rules for success. Asserts that many students lack the knowledge of how to be successful in an academic environment and would benefit from a course serving as an "On-The-Job Professional…

Change in middle school students' sense of school belonging was examined in relation to grade point average, motivation variables, and teachers' promotion of mutual respect in classes. Survey data from 618 students collected in three waves during the sixth and seventh grades were submitted to growth curve analysis. On average, students' sense of…

This report examines motivational variables and support structures that influenced the success of African American females who graduated with honors from a rural Georgia high school. Case studies focus on the nature of the honor graduates' friendships and the role that friendship may have played in motivating these students to become honor…

R. J. Sternberg and others found that the types of behaviors reported by laypersons as characterizing different types of intelligence varied across the different groups tested, and that a person's concept of intelligence affects the manner in which he or she evaluates the intelligence of others. Two experiments by Sternberg et al. were replicated.…

One hundred first year scholars in highly selective programs in five American universities took part in a preliminary study of outstanding high school graduates and the teachers who had contributed in special ways to their academic success. Fifty-three teachers who were identified by the scholars participated in the study by providing information…

This study found no differences in the performance of middle class black and white children on three ability measures. The sample consisted of 15 pairs of black and white middle class children, aged 2.5 to 6.5 years, who attended the same mid-south child development center during 1987-88. Variables on which the children were match-paired were the…

Many teachers work in the difficult situation of teaching academic subjects to students who are not academically oriented. Especially in high school, non-college-bound students are required to take two or three years of science and social studies. For these students schools offer lower-track classes that exhibit high failure rates and low teacher…

Elementary and secondary school teachers were asked to rate the sources that influence their decisions on what they teach in their subject areas. Possible influential sources were identified as: (1) district consultants; (2) state or district recommended textbooks; (3) state curriculum guides; (4) commercially prepared materials; (5) teachers' own…

Ethnographic observations and teacher interviews were conducted in desegregated first grade classrooms to examine teachers' attitudes toward black female students, black females' orientations toward teachers, and black females' peer expectations. The research indicated that: (1) teachers considered black girls to have average or slightly below…

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of teacher admissions in institutions which are members of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. A concomitant purpose was to determine, by comparison with a national study in 1972 on the same topic, emerging trends in teacher education. A questionnaire that was similar,…

In fall 1981, a survey of students enrolled in the 27 community colleges in Washington was conducted to determine student background characteristics and educational objectives, self-ratings of abilities, types of college courses taken, types of learning activities participated in during particular courses, reasons for and for not enrolling in…

The first set of National Longitudinal Study (NLS) data was analyzed to derive composite scores to be used in subsequent analyses. The composites include a general ability measure, a socioeconomic status (SES) index, and factor scores from factor analyses of sets of question items measuring goals, attitudes, and other psychological attributes. The…

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…