A cognitive appraisal of threat is believed to intervene between the appearance of a stressful stimulus and a stress reaction to the stimulus. The effect of a "rational" treatment on the appraisal of threat is investigated. Five groups of 13 college students each heard one of five treatment orientations before viewing slides showing the victims of…

Processes that integrate the logical and participative dimensions of group decision making and problem solving are increasingly important to those responsible for the organizational development of educational systems. This paper describes a model (The Optimal Combination of Processes for Creative Problem Solving) that was designed to deal with a…

This paper describes an instrument used to assess the receptive language of children. The bilingual child is tested first in the non-dominant language. When the ceiling is reached in the non-dominant language, the tester switches to the dominant language. (The ideal situation would be to give the test in one language one day, then repeat the test…

The role of reinforcement has long been an issue in learning theory. The effects of reinforcement in learning were investigated under circumstances which made the information necessary for correct performance equally available to reinforced and nonreinforced subjects. Fourth graders (N=36) were given a pre-test of 20 items from the Peabody Picture…

A pilot study into adult learners' perceptions of adult learning was undertaken in early 1980 at Adelaide College of the Arts and Education (Australia). The research set out to explore whether there are underlying dimensions which adult learners use in evaluating and comparing learning experiences. Five volunteer subjects completed Kolb's Learning…

Intended for use by life skills coaches and students, program evaluators, and individuals developing lesson plans and other training materials, this taxonomy includes all of the terminal performance behaviors and corresponding sub-skills required to become and function as a balanced, self-determined person who manages the problems of everyday life…

For about three years, Lane Community College has made 15 one-page "Study Tips" available to students for free. Designed for students who would not be likely to read a booklet on study methods or attend a full course, the "Study Tips" are displayed in the Counseling Department, Study Skills Center, and Multi-Cultural Center and are distributed by…

Corrective reading assessment and instruction in middle and secondary schools are based on students' weaknesses rather than on their strengths and bear little relationship to the tasks of content area reading. Two premises serve as a rationale for a positive approach to middle and secondary school reading instruction: (1) the majority of students…

In a study that investigated differences in the processing styles of beginning readers, a Pictograph Sentence Memory Test (PSMT) was administered to first and second grade students to determine their processing style as well as to assess instructional effects. Based on their responses to the PSMT, the children were classified as either visual or…

The "yes/no" method of vocabulary assessment requires students to indicate words they know from among a list of words and nonwords. Preliminary evidence gained from a study involving fifth grade students indicates that the method is superior in many ways to the multiple choice method of assessment. Analysis of "false alarms," cases in which…

It is the responsibility of higher education to help individuals develop skills and powers of reasoning so that culture can be understood and preserved. There are two aspects of reason, the reason of Plato that seeks a complete understanding and the reason of Ulysses that seeks an immediate method of action. Because of the demand for technocrats,…

This study investigated the extent of forward shaping due to post-questions on (1) focussing Canadian chemistry students' (N=109) attention on different and similar categories of information (for example, kinds of chemical reactions) described in a science text and (2) requiring students to process science information at high/low knowledge and…

The procedures, major findings, and conclusions of the Adolescent Reasoning Project are summarized in this final report to the National Science Foundation. Eleven different experiments were conducted to investigate the role of naturalistic and laboratory task content on scientific reasoning. Participants involved 1500 seventh, ninth, eleventh, and…

The case study of Nadia, an autistic child, documents the phenomenally accurate drawings she made. Nadia's precocious drawing capacity raises questions about the drawing hypothesis adhered to by F. Goodenough and D. B. Harris and Gestalt theories of perception and representation. The argument is made that Nadia drew realistically because she…

Problems related to the structure of the mental lexicon are considered. The single access assumption, the passive memory assumption, and the heterogeneous memory assumption are rejected in favor of the theory which assumes several active memories, each able to store expression based on only one homogenous set of abstract primitives. One lexicon…