A study of the impact of their children's deafness on Greek mothers was undertaken with 42 hearing mothers. Onset of deafness before 18 months of age was associated with greater maternal stress. The mothers mainly had an external locus of control, and self-esteem proved the best predictor of stress. (Author/SW)

Offers insights gathered while supervising two school-based, action-research investigations. Conceptualizes reflective teaching and practitioner research. Analyzes why a loosely conceived investigation generated developments in staff expertise and curriculum innovation, while a more rigorous project attracted academic praise and dust. Debates…

Reports on a study involving college students who completed a questionnaire measuring involvement, moods, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavior control, and intentions concerning specific leisure activities. Reports one year later showed that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control predicted leisure intentions;…

Examined effects of retention in kindergarten and first grade. Compared 31 retained students to 31 nonretained students with similar grades on grade point average in second through fifth grades and teacher-assessed social competence, cognitive competence, externalizing problems, internalizing problems. Retention, not associated with long-term…

Examined hypothesis that poor parental bonds in childhood lead to adult social competency deficits in part responsible for low social support. Data from 253 undergraduates revealed that parental bonds were positively related to self-efficacy, especially care with social self-efficacy. Parental bonds and social competencies predicted 35 percent of…

Explored effects of psychoeducational intervention on adolescents' involvement in extracurricular activities, self-esteem, and locus of control. Randomly assigned 52 ninth graders to either empowerment or control group. Students in empowerment program maintained their level of involvement during transition to high school, time when participation…

Students are rarely invited to become active participants in their own education. Empowering students positively affects their well-being, behavior and values, academic achievement, teachers, and understanding of democracy. Barriers to giving students more choice fall into three categories: structural impediments, teacher resistance, and student…

Examined relationships among childrearing, parental locus of control about childrearing, and child's behavior style. Found that parents who perceived their child's behavior as either externalizing or internalizing had a weak internal locus of control and were more authoritarian. Perceived externalizing child behavior was positively related to…

Responds to case of Sondra presented in Career Development Quarterly (September 1990). Suggests that her inability to decide on a career may be rooted in long-term personality style, poor ego strength, noisome family dynamics, and/or developmental delay. Recommends an integrative approach incorporating both personal and career counseling. (PVV)

Examined perceptions of personal control in 1,267 individuals in 4 generations of families participating in multiple cohort, longitudinal study spanning 1971-91. Over 20 years, mean levels of personal control became more internal among 560 individuals who participated in all measurements, probably reflecting environmental factors. Found…

Examined whether performance on scales reflecting problem-solving dimensions of personality could predict ego-strength in college students (n=348). Findings did not support statistically significant relationship between all problem-solving scales and ego-strength. Individually, evidence supported hypothesis that ego-strength can be predicted from…

Conceptualizations of self-directed learning have emphasized the social characteristics of learner isolation or social autonomy, neglecting the importance of pedagogical and psychological factors. However, psychological self-directedness or psychological control is the necessary and sufficient cause for self-directed learning and best…

Studied attributions for school-based loneliness for 36 Finnish students with a high degree of loneliness and 42 with a low degree of loneliness. More lonely students mostly used a nonself-serving internal-stable attributional style, while less lonely students attributed temporary loneliness to external, unstable, and controllable causes.…

Explores causal attributions of success and failure as functions of religious orientations among a sample of Polish university students. Participants assessed secular and religious attributions on three dimensions: controllability, stability, and locus. Finds that religious and non-religious participants attributed both success and failure to…

Adult children of workaholics were compared with adult children of nonworkaholics on self-concept, anxiety, depression, and external locus of control. Results indicate greater depression and external locus of control among the offspring of workaholics. Children of workaholic fathers also experienced higher anxiety. Self-concept was not related to…