Preservice teachers, asked to evaluate components of a social studies methods course, rated theory as the least important element, behind methods, field experience, and content. Younger, less experienced preservice teachers considered theory more valuable than others did. (PP)

In a research study, fourth-grade, fifth-grade, and college females performed the Bachman Free-Standing Ladder-Balance task after watching four, eight, and twelve, or no videotaped demonstrations of the task. The videotape modeling seemed to affect form (or strategy) of their performances more than their final scores. (PP)

A total of 20 children under 14 years of age who were admitted to a hospital following suicide attempts were compared with 50 psychiatrically ill, nonsuicidal inpatients of similar age. Suicidal behavior was associated with the male sex, personal experiences of significant loss, academic underachievement, marital disintegration among parents, and…

This study investigated the relationships among vocational, moral, and social development in ninth- and twelfth-grade students to clarify the psychological and psychosocial nature of vocational maturity. The effects of age differences and sex differences are discussed. (PP)

The relationship of age and developmental differences to modeling and motor skill development were examined. Comparisons of the observational learning patterns of four- and five-year-old children and of seven- and eight-year-olds suggest that their physical and cognitive capacities call for different instructional strategies. (Author/PP)

Children who had been removed from deleterious family environments were exposed to 10 sessions of imaginative play training. When compared with matched controls, experimental subjects showed significant post training increments in imagination, positive emotionality, prosocial behaviors, and storytelling skills and decreases in overt aggression.…

Depending on age and the demands of the task, people may use different processing strategies in object categorization. Three-year-olds used a wholistic approach with strong effects of object typicality on three categorization tasks. Older children and adults showed differential effects of typicality, suggesting various strategies including…

A four-part taxonomy was used to analyze first-, third-, and fifth-grade children's ability to throw and to anticipate the position of a target. The children's performances were assessed under conditions in which both the thrower and the target were stationary, both were moving, and one was moving and the other stationary. (Authors/PP)

Three experiments with small samples of elementary school students were conducted to: (1) investigate the impact of syntactic complexity on analytic assistance; (2) extend the research on analytic assistance to younger subjects; and (3) determine the relative importance of analytic assistance when compared to an example-only comparison group.…

Surveyed high school students (N=268) comparing those who had and had not taken sex education classes. Results indicated that gender identity exerts a significant impact on sexual attitudes and knowledge. Age and grade achievement influence sexual behavior. (RC)

Reports two cross-sectional studies assessing the influence of age on the use of 28 coping mechanisms. Results showed older people coped similiarly to younger people, and where they employed different mechanisms it was because of different types of stress. Middle-aged and older people used less hostile and escapist reactions. (Author/RC)

Explores the issues of patient homogeneity, external validity, internal validity, choosing and implementing specific treatment modalities, therapist experience and attitudes, therapist age, reliability and validity of measures, and problems obtaining follow-up information when studying treatment of depressed elderly patients. (Author)

Reviews problems with early survey research methods. Recent studies are examined in terms of characteristics of the stimuli and contexts, and characteristics of the perceivers employed in them. Methodological and conceptual issues in these three categories are used to organize the body of research that exists. (Author)

In two experiments, children were subjected to a delay of gratification procedure in which higher levels of reward were contingent upon maintaining waiting behavior. Results from both experiments indicated that the impact of a positive affect induction procedure on delay of gratification varied with age. (Author/DB)

Interrelationships between measures of satisfaction and a variety of life domains were used to test the similarity of the underlying factor structure of subjective well-being across age levels. Findings indicated that for respondents of age levels between 25 and 75, the nature of the underlying factors are similar. (Author)