Determines whether writing skills are hierarchically organized. Finds that writing begins with the primary process of responsiveness and ends with the terminal skill of mechanics. Suggests that the proportion of instructional time devoted to mechanics and editing skills should exceed that devoted to the primary skills of topic relevance and…

Cites literature supporting view that as adults, children from single-parent families have less success in school, lower earnings, and lower occupational prestige than children from intact, two-parent families. Proposes that one reason why children from one-parent families achieve less as adults is that they lack exposure to hierarchical models of…

The study examined the possible existence of a perceptual hierarchy which is systematically affected by the onset of adventitious visual impairment. Results with 80 persons with partial vision indicated a demarcation of difficulty between the simpler and more complex levels of the hierarchy. (DB)

Task lists created by private companies, consortia, state departments, and universities have caused difficulty for occupational instructors. A careful analysis of task structure shows a continuous hierarchy in cumulative learning, wherein each task becomes part of a whole. A task charting system can improve the efficiency of instruction. (SK)

Ordering principles, hierarchy, taxonomy, emergence, and decomposable systems are discussed. Examples of hierarchies are included. (CW)

Three studies investigated second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students' understanding of class inclusion hierarchies and the relationship of such understanding to the ability to construct external representations for hierarchically structured information. Children understood hierarchical relations and relations expressed in tree diagrams as early…

Thirty-six kindergartners were asked to respond to questions and construct figures designed to test their knowledge of hierarchical relations. Subjects had considerable knowledge of subset and superset classification, and could draw transitive inferences with little difficulty; however, they appeared to have little appreciation of the asymmetry…

Teams avoid pitfalls of hierarchies but have their own drawbacks related to five categories: leadership, accountability, the nature of the task, multiskilling, and human imperfection. Instead of being viewed as a panacea, teams should be recognized as another way of organizing human beings to get the job done. (JOW)

Examined role of organizational hierarchy and staff status in number of Employee Assistance Program (EAP) referrals made by potential helpers and relationship of these variables to personal EAP use among 157 supervisors and 232 employees. Supervisors suggested more EAP referrals than did employees. Middle level staff received EAP services more…

Participatory evaluation research empowers the consumers of services to become leaders in evaluation and change. Participatory research methods have been used widely in developing countries and are consistent with family therapy's recent emphasis on nonhierarchical, empowering, collaborative therapies. Presents several examples of participatory…

Examines the "sedimented" history of probability in America using Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve." Suggests this model reinforces ethnic hierarchy and differences by creating a "moral cartography" for the nation. Defines this spatial rhetoric with three sociographic dynamics. Concludes with…

Discusses science mapping in the general context of information visualization and reviews attempts to construct maps of science using citation data, focusing on the use of co-citation clusters. Reports new work on a dataset of 36,00 documents using simplified methods for ordination and nesting maps hierarchically. Also discusses virtual-reality…

"Work" and "resistance" responses to interpretation in short-term individual (STI) psychotherapy were examined using a hierarchical linear modeling procedure. Relationships between interpretation characteristics and patient responses within therapy were considered. Process data were drawn from 60 STI therapy cases, 30 patients…

Includes three articles that discuss activity theory, based on "Context and Consciousness." Topics include human-computer interaction; computer interfaces; hierarchical structuring; mediation; contradictions and development; failure analysis; and designing educational technology. (LRW)

Traditional accounts of sequential behavior assume that schemas and goals play a causal role in the control of behavior. In contrast, M. Botvinick and D. C. Plaut (see record 2004-12248-005) argued that, at least in routine behavior, schemas and goals are epiphenomenal. The authors evaluate the Botvinick and Plaut account by contrasting the simple…