To determine the relationship between age and risk taking for community college students, 74 male and 72 female students, ranging from 18-79 years of age, took a vocabulary test in which six "nonsense" items were interspersed among 54 legitimate items (following Slakter's procedure). Test instructions explained a penalty would be levied for…

A series of studies carried out in Aberdeen, Scotland and Lancaster England is used to illustrate changing interests in the area of personality and learning. The early studies looked for general relationships, adopting a psychometric approach. Recent work has been focused more on the process of learning, particularly in higher education, and on…

Proposes a peer-teaching-peer strategy that utilizes the low-achieving External as the tutor, a reversal of the usual procedure. The assumption is that the External must experience and perceive personal control over another child in order to begin orientation toward a more internal outlook. (Author)

The role of reinforcement has long been an issue in learning theory. The effects of reinforcement in learning were investigated under circumstances which made the information necessary for correct performance equally available to reinforced and nonreinforced subjects. Fourth graders (N=36) were given a pre-test of 20 items from the Peabody Picture…

The present study employed discrete trial procedures to compare the performance of skilled and less-skilled third and sixth grade readers (N=37) on picture, letter and word naming tasks. It was assumed that if lack of proficiency in reading skill is due to a general name-retrieval deficit, then the skilled readers would be able to name each…

Feminist therapists' writings, while focusing on the needs of female clients, do not always consider the limitations of the therapist. Gender differences in beginning psychotherapists' behaviors and client interactions were investigated to determine the effect of sex-role stereotyping on therapeutic interactions and interventions. Verbatim…

The procedures, major findings, and conclusions of the Adolescent Reasoning Project are summarized in this final report to the National Science Foundation. Eleven different experiments were conducted to investigate the role of naturalistic and laboratory task content on scientific reasoning. Participants involved 1500 seventh, ninth, eleventh, and…

This document presents a qualitative research study and an annotated bibliography on the characteristics of superlative teachers. For "A Qualitative Study of Excellence in Teaching," Herbert Van Schaack selected and observed nine elementary and secondary school teachers and three college and university professors. The elementary and secondary…

High school geometry students were presented lessons with either a high degree of structure or a low degree of structure. Structure was defined in terms of the frequency with which concepts were repeated from one sentence to the next. After the lessons, students were tested for comprehension of the material covered and then they rated the lessons…

Experiments at three community colleges were conducted to examine the relationships among anxiety, performance, and two different methods of informing students of their instructor's evaluation of in-class speeches. Subjects were 77 students in six speech classes. The three teachers of the classes gave traditional letter grades and comments on the…

Factors that may influence teacher academic expectations include socioeconomic level, sex, level of academic and intellectual functioning, background information, and test results. In a study conducted by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) on teacher expectations and pupils' intellectual development, it was found that, when teachers expected certain…

The purpose of this paper is to make classroom teachers on all educational levels aware of the limitations of readability formulas and the factors affecting readability that are not accounted for by the readability formulas. delineated in discussions of readability formula assumptions, problems, and limitations. Some of the specific factors that…

Transfer of knowledge and skills from the classroom to real life settings is an essential goal of any educational program. A study of microcounseling skills possessed by graduate students examined their interactions with classmates in a role playing situation. All students participated in skills training, responded to videotaped client vignettes,…

The influence of empathy on observers' attributions for an outcome achieved by an actor was examined as well as self-presentational strategies when observers either expected to assume the actor's role later (Role-Playing). On videotape, observer-subjects (N=160) watched an actor succeed or fail at an interpersonal influence task, after being given…

The purposes of this study were to determine the effects of previous training in agricultural mechanics upon achievement of students enrolled in a college level agricultural mechanics course and to determine factors that affect performance in this course of basic metals and welding. Students enrolled in the course during the fall and winter…