In the study of students' achievement behavior, it has been argued that learning goals that emphasize self-improvement rather than outperforming others are more desirable. This study examined how students' learning goal orientations were related to their theories of intelligence (e.g., whether intelligence is inborn). The subjects were 400 Chinese…

Drawing on J. Epstein's theory of overlapping spheres of influence (1991, 1995), this study explores the effects of teacher, family, and church support on the school-related attitudes, behaviors, and academic achievement of African American, urban adolescents. To achieve this objective, 826 students in an urban school district in the southeastern…

The term "conative" is used to describe constructs that span both motivational and volitional aspects of human behavior, distinguished from constructs that emphasize cognition and affection. Among the conative constructs are achievement strivings, beliefs about self-esteem and self-efficacy, interests and attitudes about learning,…

The student teaching field experience has proven to be one of the most critical components of teacher preparation programs, and yet little is known about how pedagogical skills develop during this period. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine student teachers' classroom interactions over the course of a 10-week student teaching…

High and low self-monitors were given the task of applying for a position that was or was not a good fit with their personality. Subjects were 97 introductory psychology students who had previously taken the 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS). They took the SMS again--as if it were being used to decide whether they would be offered a very…

Performance-based assessment provides an alternative identification method for young gifted children. A performance-based identification process was developed and implemented to select three-, four-, and five-year-old children for inclusion in a school for gifted children. Literature regarding child development, characteristics of young gifted…

A study sought to determine what factors and events have influenced the occupational behavior patterns of 1977-1978 Pennsylvania home economics education graduates. The study examined how women graduates of the traditionally female field of home economics education have experienced labor force participation over the past 10 years. Home economics…

This manual is a resource guide for leadership training workshops for American Indian women. Section I of the manual presents an overview of critical issues involved in the professionalization of American Indian women, including (1) the traditional roles of Indian women, and their precedent for contemporary professional roles; (2) the major issues…

Using J. Dewey's "reconstruction of experience" concept of revision, a study employed ethnographic methods to investigate the effects of computer assisted writing instruction on students' revising processes. Primary subjects, eight sixth-graders, completed a structured revision task on their compositions, with varying degrees of computer…

Passive coping behavior and traditional role-gender definitions affect learning needs of segments of the Mexican American adult community and may affect the behavioral development of younger family members. Networking within the community is useful in defining and meeting learning needs of adult Mexican Americans by creating cooperative,…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 35 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) television and scholastic achievement; (2) press freedom and the new world information order; (3) content analysis of Saturday morning children's television…

Videotape recordings and transcriptions of sequences of drama sessions in 10 elementary classrooms were analyzed to explore the utility of an anthropological perspective in assessing the nature of children's participation in improvisational drama project activities. Approximately 270 children and their teachers received seven and one half hours of…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 15 titles deal with the following topics: (1) the development of a module to attain the leadership competency of encouraging improved interpersonal communication through feedback; (2) communicating in an American Taoist…

Two data-gathering instruments, the Supervisory Behavior Description Questionnaire (SBDQ) and the derivative Supervising Teacher Behavior Description Questionnaire (STBDQ), are described in one paper and employed in three others in this symposium series. Both forms are useful in evaluating perceived behaviors of supervisory educational personnel,…

Preservice secondary teachers were assigned research on the consumer behavior and habits of junior high school students for the purpose of allowing preservice teachers to discover their own knowledge of young adolescents. Observations were made of groups of students at two typical malls in a southeastern city of around 100,000 population. The…