This paper argues that some of the current trends affecting academe impede on key institutional structures, or sets of interrelated norms for academic conduct, which are necessary for sustaining collective action among academics. In this sense academics and academic units may find themselves "between a rock and a hard place'', that is with new…

The purpose of this research was to study the characteristics of the intragroup relations between the middle-status adolescents in a student group and the other status categories. It is assumed that the social and psychological portrait of an open adolescent student group, the character of the orientation and the level of its development, and the…

A common challenge in many situations of computer-supported collaborative learning is increasing the willingness of those involved to share their knowledge with other group members. As a prototypical situation of computer-supported information exchange, a shared-database setting was chosen for the current study. This information-exchange situation…

This article describes the rationale for and use of a class innovation the authors call "professor delight." This inexpensive, high-yield concept allows students and professors to enact their understanding of citizenship throughout the term, and often beyond. The authors explain the concept, describe its implementation in class, and link it to the…

The Motivation of Teachers to Assume the Role of Cooperating Teacher This study explored a phenomenological understanding of the motivation and influences that cause experienced teachers to assume pedagogical training of student teachers through the role of cooperating teacher. The research question guiding the study was what motivates teachers to…

A look at two areas of research in group dynamics: Individual behavior conformity to certain pressures of group processes, and the "risky shift phenomenon," which theorizes that the group tends to be a more dynamic and venturesome unit than does the individual acting alone. (Author/HB)

Operational definitions of two key variables in group communication can provide a theoretical perspective for considering communication behavior in group research: "risk taking," the tendency to prefer long shots with higher payoffs over sure things with lower payoffs; and the "risky-shift" phenomenon, the finding that after…

The principles of group dynamics were applied to systems theories of personality. Parallels were drawn between groups and the mind especially in the area of intragroup conflict and intrapsychic conflict and with regard to group size and the number of subsystems of the mind. The heuristic possibilities of this analogy were discussed. (Author)

This study uses the ethological approach of seeking species characteristics and phylogenetic continuities in an investigation of human behavior. Among primates a striking consistency is the presence of some form of dominance hierarchy in many species. The present study examines peer group dominance hierarchies as they are perceived by children in…

In summary, the results suggest that, with five-year-old children, more might be gained by structuring the task than by structuring the group." (Author)

Study of five teaching teams suggests that much time is wasted in meetings or in areas of limited significance for the education of children. (Author/LR)