Staff development coordinators in the Georgia school systems responded to a survey to assess their perceptions of the administrative needs of their school districts. Of the 61 needs surveyed, staff development coordinators selected staff morale and group dynamics as their most critical areas of need, followed by evaluating program effectiveness…

In a study that aimed to distinguish three levels of peer relationship and assess behavior at the three levels, a within-subjects design was used to investigate target preschool children's behavior toward their best friends, associates, and acquaintances in preschool classes. For 6 weeks, 22 target children in 7 classes were observed while they…

A survey was conducted of 102 active quality circle members drawn from five organizations to determine how quality circle participation affected communication, as perceived by members themselves. The survey consisted of two parts. The first part contained ten open-ended questions inquiring about the respondent's personal experience in quality…

A study employed a Burkeian framework in order to determine the nature of Al-Anon's rhetoric and evaluate the success of the organization's rhetorical strategies in appealing to the co-alcoholic population that it addresses. According to Kenneth Burke, a message is persuasive if the audience perceives a commonality with the central beliefs of the…

Research has shown that observers' vicarious emotional reactions to an in-group member's facial display of pleasure and pain are highly differentiated and empathetic, while responses to the expressive displays of an out-group member are relatively undifferentiated and indifferent. This study examines the effects of perceived group membership on…

In the first section of this monograph, the reasons why the personal nature of teaching makes it relatively impervious to outside influences are explored. It is suggested that change in education occurs only when the individual teacher changes. Educational innovation is viewed as a matter of facilitating and sustaining modification in the…

Group density (the extent of anticipated or actual interaction between group members independent of the subject) may be a situational antecedent of paranoid behavior. Members of a high density group can discuss others in their absence, and the potential for criticism and restricted privacy is greater than in a low density group where fewer…

The tendency for individuals to reduce their own efforts when others are available to respond has been called "social loafing." Social loafing has been found also to characterize collective endeavors on tasks considered cognitively efffortful. To test the hypothesis that reduced cognitive effort related to the presence of a coacting group would…

In addition to assessing observed communication behaviors, this paper suggests that SYMLOG--a System for the Multiple Level Observation of Groups--can be used by participant-observers as a foil for interpreting how their own value orientations affect their data collecting and theorizing. The first section of the paper examines the research role…

It has been suggested that individuals differ in the extent to which they monitor self-perceptions in social situations: high self-monitors use cues about the appropriateness of various types of behaviors to determine their social behavior, while low self-monitors control their social behavior by their own attitudes rather than by the demands of…

Methodology should emphasize creativity rather than memorization in language learning. Several types of class activities are proposed. (Text is in French.) (TL)

This article presents the results of research into methods and scorings for jazz assessment in Trinity College of Music, London, focusing on the possibility of introducing group assessment. It considers the advantages of group assessment methods, contrasting these with the more traditional approach, firmly established in conservatoires, of…

Taking a Rogerian approach, hypothesizing that groups develop through patterns similar to individuals' and that group maturity fosters excellence in learning, the authors offer criteria for analyzing group processes which may be translated into appropriate evaluative devices. One such device currently being used by adult educators is illustrated.…