Reports three studies examining the relationship between people's public speaking anxiety and their construals of the public speaking experience. Finds that anxiety is related to both beliefs and concerns that play a major role in the preparation of speeches. (SR)

Discusses leadership behavior of managers and presents a model for leadership choice that dichotomizes bureaucratic and non-bureaucratic leadership behaviors. The power of managers is described in terms of both position status and personal influence, and the relationship between the manager's role and the needs of employees is discussed. (LRW)

When 40 organically mentally retarded, 33 familial retarded, and 35 nonretarded school-age children were compared on 2 tasks of intentional memory, with mental age being covaried, the nonretarded children performed best, followed by the familial group. The 3 groups did not differ on a task of incidental learning. (Author/JDD)

A study of 80 children, aged 7, 10, 13, and 16, found that gender was not an important variable in speech breathing, but age was. The youngest group exhibited such things as larger lung, rib cage, and abdominal volume initiations and terminations for breath groups and fewer syllables per breath group. (Author/JDD)

Students (N=120) with learning disabilities in grades 6-9 were assessed on comprehension of silently read materials under conditions of adjunct questioning, oral recitation questioning methods, and middle/end and end-only question placement. Results indicated a significant effect of method and a significant interaction between level and focus of…

Four samples of university freshmen (N=859) rated the influence of 10 possible factors on exam performance. A subset sample (n=209) assessed 10 factors along 3 of the 4 dimensions identified in the first study. Results indicate that the dimensions of locus, stability, control, and globality constitute major causal attributions. (TJH)

The importance of defining variables to be put into correlation tables for factor-analytic research into intelligence is discussed. Research on job analysis, task decomposition, performance-related intelligence changes, and cross-cultural differences could be incorporated into definition of variables. (TJH)

Discussion of instruction and training to introduce new ideas and to improve performance focuses on the presence of conflict and the theory of games. Topics discussed include learner participation; Theory X; Theory Y; and Theory Z; and game rules, including control, scoring, changing rules, and ending the game. (25 references) (LRW)

The communicative performance of four preoperational-level adolescents, using limited speech, gestures, and communication board techniques, was examined. The two studies took place in a therapy room: one involved interaction with a teacher, and the second involved spontaneous interactions with speaking and nonspeaking peers. Communication mode,…

Seventeen dyslexic college students rapidly repeated a series of phonologically complex and simple phrases. Compared to controls, subjects repeated the phrases at a significantly slower rate and, in the complex condition, made significantly more errors. Analysis of errors suggested that dyslexics may have difficulties in the planning stage of…

Describes a performance technology approach to paperwork reduction for managers that looks at information as a stimulus designed to prompt or initiate a desired behavior or response from the reader. Guidelines for improving performance through the use of information that serves as directions or feedback are given. (LRW)

Attempted to maximize the efficacy of time-delay discrimination training of 16 preschoolers. No indications were found of effects of precision response pretraining on the outcome of time delay of static cues. Transfer and lack of transfer of stimulus control were associated with nonshifts and shifts of response loci, respectively. (RH)

Surveyed employers (N=100) on reservations about hiring people with disabilities. Found employers were convinced that workers with physical disabilities had positive work performance abilities and work personality attributes; opinions about workers with mental and emotional disabilities were much less positive. (Author/ABL)

This study examined agreement among 59 regular education high school teachers, 188 normally achieving high school students, and 50 high school students with learning disabilities (LD) concerning social and school skills important for success in the mainstream. Results revealed that teachers differed significantly from LD students on 16 skills and…

Reports on a study of the size of text windows, defined as a group of words appearing in contiguous position in text, and the effects of varying the window size on information retrieval performance. The characteristics of windows that best match terms in queries are examined in detail. (Contains 10 references.) (KRN)