Interactions between teachers and multiply disabled students were videotaped, and procedures were developed to analyze the interactions, in order to assist the teachers in evaluating the relationship between their own and their student's communicative behavior. Coding categories were prepared to identify characteristics of the student's…

One hundred interactions involving 4,231 communicative acts between classroom personnel and multiply disabled students were videotaped. The resulting data were coded and analyzed, and showed that: (1) conventional communicative forms (e.g., speech, manual signs, conventional nonverbal expressions) were selected to convey information to students…

A study investigates how asking-for-information interactions are managed in actual talk and how they are represented in textbooks for learners of English as a second language (ESL). Data are confined to opening and closing sequences in interactions, and are derived from 60 real-life and 60 textbook dialogue interactions. The real-life interactions…

This working paper examines the theories of Fred Fiedler concerning the effectiveness of different leadership styles in different situations. Discussed first are the distinctions that Fiedler makes between what he terms relationship-motivated leaders and task-motivated leaders. The next section comprises an explanation of Fiedler's view of…

The "symbol systems approach" to the study of computers in education that is outlined avoids the pitfalls of past media research--particularly research on the effects of television on children's learning and knowledge--and asserts that media can be usefully distinguished in terms of the symbol systems they present and the kinds of…

Examples of computer programs illustrate how instructors can introduce students to geographic concepts and models while creating a thinking environment in the classroom. The programs are designed to assist students in computational tasks and to provide both graphic and numeric output which will be stimulating. A population pyramid program…

To explore the impact of the environment on perceptions of compliance gaining situations, 97 university students were asked to recall and describe situations in which they had had to persuade someone to do something. Their descriptions of compliance gaining situations were then evaluated for similarity by three additional groups of students. The…

The quality of life of nursing home residents may be enhanced by providing them with opportunities to participate in social activities involving different age groups and community-dwelling age peers. To obtain descriptive data, and to investigate the relationships between patterns of social interaction and subject characteristics, time-sampled…

Although the functional relationship between school board and superintendent is a critical connection that stands at the apex of the organizational pyramid in education, little is known about that linkage, other than the tension endemic to the relationship. This study therefore examines how superintendents and school boards interact and inquires…

This study investigated the flexibility of 16 supervisors in implementing a developmental approach to supervisor-supervisee interaction during the postobservation conference. Specific objectives included determining: (1) if supervisors' diagnoses of supervisees' conceptual levels (CL) agreed with the Paragraph Completion Method (PCM) measurement…

This study describes the interactive styles of two university professors and their students in traditional and reflective seminar contexts. As both professors taught the same group of undergraduates in an inquiry oriented experimental teacher education program and also taught groups of graduate students in traditional seminars, it was possible to…

This paper discusses "Comments," a computer tool developed to study computer support for response to writing. The paper presents two primary theoretical perspectives to support the use of response to writing in learning to write: (1) writing is a social act; and (2) writing is a skill whose acquisition requires more than one reader so…

Based on the notion that a dialectical perspective better represents the processes and tensions involved in family communication than do traditional models, an exploratory study examined the communication practices of two television families: the Huxtables of "The Cosby Show," and the Keatons of "Family Ties." The series were…

This monograph, one of a series presented at a conference on "What Do We Know about Teaching and Learning in Urban Schools?" reviews research findings and examines directions for further exploration of the relationship between home-school-community relations and student achievement. Research suggests that local schools view themselves as political…

In this study, the effects of differing levels of obligation attached to a gift and differing levels of resources possessed by the donor on the attraction of the recipient toward the donor were studied. Using groups of between three and five college volunteers, subjects were seated in booths constructed so that they could not see each other, were…