Describes telephone survey of undergraduate students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst that was conducted to determine student opinions of policies that require them to take computer courses and/or to own a personal computer. Student attitudes toward computing and the variables that contribute to these attitudes are examined. (15…

Administered Noncognitive Questionnaire to 230 international students prior to matriculation as college freshmen. Results identified noncognitive variables predictive of student use of counseling center services over four-year period. Counseling center use was significantly predicted by students' understanding and ability to deal with racism,…

Assessed classroom stress and burnout experienced by 121 gifted and talented students, ages 10-15, in combination with background, personal, and general anxiety and stress variables. Found poor self-esteem, an externalized locus of control, high levels of state and trait anxiety, poor school life quality, and tedium proved to be significant…

The relationships among intelligence, field dependence, sex role, and mathematics background and achievement were examined in a study involving 287 college students. Number of math courses taken and intelligence were the best predictors of math achievement, although other variables also influenced achievement. (TJH)

Used quantitative and qualitative measures to examine reasons for underachievement or success in 9- to 11-year olds. Found poor handwriting, when stemming from weak fine motor skills and poor eye-hand coordination, marks underachievement. Socioeconomic factors influenced differences in math, but not in reading ability. Academic success was more…

Finds the best preschool predictors of reading were naming tests for boys and general verbal ability for girls; for kindergartners, a quantitative test surpassed test of phonemic awareness and language in predicting reading; effects of birth order were strongest at the preschool level; socioeconomic status had significant effects only for boys,…

Uses preschool tests of general verbal ability, verbal memory span, phonological awareness, lexical access speed and accuracy, and letter knowledge in preschool as independent measures predicting performance on second-grade reading comprehension, word discrimination, and word decoding speed. Finds differential main effects and interactions but a…

Mothers provided personality assessments of 350 ethnically diverse 12- and 13-year-old boys using the California Child Q-set procedure to allow the development of scales to measure 5 personality dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The resulting nomological network related these…

Incidental vocabulary learning from context and 2 factors that might influence it, access to a dictionary and verbal ability, were examined among 112 second-year university students. Results indicate that subjects learned more words while reading for meaning, but high verbal ability students and those using a dictionary learn more. (71 references)…

Comparison of 37 abusive mothers with a nonabusive sample revealed that abusive mothers had more children, showed more stress, had fewer people to count on in time of need, perceived less neighborhood support, felt less satisfaction with their spousal relationship, and were less involved in the community. (Author/JDD)

Describes a study that was conducted to determine whether distance education learners experience anxiety, based on results of a survey of 222 University of Southern Queensland students. Anxiety toward instructional materials and variables that affect students' perceptions of factors that affect their anxiety are discussed. (LRW)

Reports a study that examined the utility of health and exercise locus of control and health and exercise value in predicting exercise behavior in 86 adults. Survey results indicated that exercise locus of control was a better predictor of exercise behavior than a more general measure of health locus of control. (Author/SM)

Forty children with mental retardation were compared on everyday leisure-time behaviors with children without mental retardation matched for mental age (MA) or chronological age (CA). Although MA best predicted overall functioning on leisure-time behavior, CA best predicted both single highest behavior performed and highest behavior considered too…

Infants' attachment security with parents, parental behavior, and child behavior were assessed at 18-24 months; problem behavior was assessed when the children were in first grade. Found that mother-child relationship predicted later problem behaviors; father-child relationship did not. Also found that attachment security, maternal acceptance, and…

Examined mothers' demands during mothers' interactions with their 1.5- to 3.5-year olds. Mothers with authoritative child-rearing attitudes emphasized proactive, competence-oriented demands and avoided regulatory control. Maternal demands for competent action predicted fewer behavior problems in their children at age five; maternal demands focused…