Although research on assertion has made important advances in our understanding of young children's behavior within their peer group, there has been a significant limitation in that prior studies have generally not given attention to the gender specific social goals of girls. To advance the literature, this short-term longitudinal study uses a…

As part of a research project examining relationships between instructional practices and student cognitive and social outcomes in middle-school mathematics classes, external observers and students reported perceptions of teachers' instructional practices. The extent to which students in classrooms identified by external raters as reform-oriented…

Wishing to explore the complexity of the conceptual, didactic and institutional aspects of learning a scientifically defined object of knowledge, we chose to study the link between the personal relation to numeration developed by six-year-old pupils in first grade ("cours preparatoire" the first level of primary school in France), and…

From its inception, the Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education (TLC) project included an explicit intention to identify some principles for the enhancement of learning cultures in order to improve student and teacher learning, and a wish to see how effective different strategies could be in this endeavour. The project showed that both…

A study explored the effect of drama on the writing development of adolescents in four Toronto (Canada) schools over a 6-month period using a naturalistic observation methodology. The range of schools and student groupings included: a grade 10 drama class in a collegiate institute; a grade 12/O.A.C. drama class in a technical-commercial school;…

To make the point that infant emotions are more dynamic than suggested by Differential Emotions Theory, which maintains that infants show the same prototypical facial expressions for emotions as adults do, this paper explores two questions: (1) when infants experience an emotion, do they always show the corresponding prototypical facial…

Conventional experimental research in mental imagery and visualization presents conflicting findings. Naturalistic inquiry offers an alternative approach for the study of mental imagery and problem solving. Paulo Freire, for example, used a naturalistic approach that emphasized active involvement in learning. Imagery can play an important role in…

Fignting behavior in young children was investigated in a sample of 96 first- and second-grade children from 14 classrooms in two suburban schools. A fight (or "conflict episode") was defined as a sequence of interchanges between two children in which child A attempts to influence child B's behavior, child B resists, and child A…

This paper describes storyknifing activities practiced by a small group of young girls in a Yup'ik Eskimo village on the Kuskokwim River in Alaska. Storyknifing is a form of play in which girls tell stories to one another, while making drawings and designs in mud or snow. The girls will sit in a circle for hours at a time, taking turns telling…

Mothers of about 100 toddlers completed the Toddler Temperament Scale when their children were 12, 18, and 24 months old. Other data sets were available for: (a) factors representing laboratory observations; (b) measures of mothers' temperament by mothers and by social workers; and (c) measures of the home and family environment by social workers.…

In contrast to traditional practices in reading and writing assessment which focus on fragmented, isolated skills, a holistic approach to assessment is recommended. Children's reading and writing are seen as communicative behaviors which are effectively evaluated through systematic observation as they occur in natural settings. (JW)

This collection of seven short articles discusses the role of naturalistic observation in program evaluation. There are criteria that evaluators explicitly or implicitly use to reach conclusions. These papers discuss these criteria and try to determine what constitutes legitimate evaluation knowledge. (RB)

The purposes of evaluation design are stated. A description of experimental, quasi-experimental, survey, and naturalistic designs is presented. Emphasis is placed upon the identification of sources of invalidity in these designs that may compromise the accuracy of inferences regarding program effectiveness. (Author/JAZ)

A study used the naturalistic method of inquiry in order to investigate the CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) contribution to students' performance in arithmetic and to identify possible problems. The study was aimed at understanding the holistic environment of students' individualized drill in arithmetic with the computer. (BS)

Research by Labov dealing with everyday speech and its relation to thinking and reasoning is critiqued, and Cooper's detailed criticism of Labov's research is discussed. Researchers should pay attention to actual speech in settings that are natural, rather than using only quantitative abstractions from artificial and restricted verbal encounters.…