While some people have difficulty adjusting to retirement, others seem to adjust easily. The search for theory to explain the source of positive retirement may require research methods to develop theory rather than to test theory. Grounded theory methodology was used to determine the characteristics and sources of characteristics of adults who had…

Observations in a neighborhood day care center revealed that teachers, when they handed out a "paint shirt" without fastening it, set up a situation in which children helped one another. With modifications, this naturally occurring situation was used in order to increase the incidence of peer helping behavior so that it could be studied…

Embarrassment occurs when the social identity or "face" that one is trying to maintain is abruptly discredited. Thus, embarrassment usually assumes the presence of an audience, real or imagined, and a public predicament which changes the situation. Most people try to avoid embarrassment if they can, and if they have been embarrassed they…

A study was conducted to test a "peak communication experience" (PCE) scale developed from Abraham Maslow's theory of PCE's, a model of one's highest interpersonal communication moments in terms of perceived mutual understanding, happiness, and personal fulfillment. Nineteen items, extrapolated from Maslow's model but rendered more…

The relationship between cognitive style (field independence/field dependence), proctor/student interactions, and achievement of undergraduate students in a Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) course was studied. Field dependence/independence was measured using the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), which measures ability to identify a…

One in a series of core instructional materials for apprentices to use during the first or second years of apprentice-related subjects training, this booklet deals with interpersonal skills and communication. The first section consists of an outline of the content and scope of the core materials as well as a self-assessment pretest. Covered in the…

A study was conducted to test the reliability and validity of the Intimate Coding System (INCS)--an instrument designed to code verbal conversation in intimate relationships. Subjects, 34 married couples, completed Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale, which elicited information about relational adjustment and satisfaction in intimate couples in…

A developmental interactionist model for promoting social competence is proposed. It is argued that personal and social resources present in infancy are expanded, refined, and hierarchically reorganized continuously throughout the life-span as a function of development and experience. Social competence is seen as the result of integrating and…

Noting that while high school students have received instruction in reading and writing, few have received any instruction in speaking and listening skills, this document advocates a greater recognition of the need for a more realistic balance of instruction in the four communication areas than has traditionally been the case. Sections of the…

The paper examines research on social skills instruction for learning disabled young adults. It is suggested that learning disabled young adults must develop methods of analyzing their social inadequacies. Such analyses may come from the young adults, when they are able to apply metacognition skills to social situations. Parents, teachers, and/or…

Forty-one college students participated in a study designed to gather validity and reliability information on a procedure used to measure communication competence, the Communication Competency Assessment Instrument (CCAI). The study, in confirming operationalization validity, found that self-report measures correlated only slightly with…

The manual provides an empirically-based coding system to assess the social skills of physically disabled students in wheelchairs and nondisabled college students. A list of 24 frequently occurring social situations in institutions of higher education are listed in rank order; the situations require a response either by physically disabled or able…

In this document, one of a series of papers commissioned by Foundations (a development project designed to examine the career development needs of students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf), the processes of moral development in persons with hearing impairments are examined. The work of J. Piaget is first reviewed, followed…

"High level wellness...is defined as an integrated method of functioning which is oriented toward maximizing the potential of which the individual is capable. It requires that the individual maintain a continuum of balance and purposeful direction within the environment where he is functioning." Expanding upon this quotation from Halbert…

The influence of supervisory training and experience as a cooperating teacher on the cooperating teacher's role as an instructional supervisor for early field experience students (FES's) was studied. Recent research has indicated that cooperating teachers tend to provide inadequate feedback and avoid negative comments. Their FES's appeared to have…