Replicating Success, a school improvement program in Philadelphia, is designed to raise the achievement level of all students in 30 selected, racially isolated, low achieving schools. Each school undertakes an extensive needs assessment process and then develops an individualized schoolwide plan which takes into account the characteristics of…

Conditions in schools that reduce the effectiveness and perceived value of instructional supervision can be diagnosed and corrected through a cyclical process called "organizational learning." Rather than merely responding to symptoms, this method focuses on eliminating or mitigating the underlying causes of "organizational…

A cross-sectional sample of 704 adults was interviewed in a study examining the processes that relate demographic predictors to media use and effects. It was hypothesized that primary groups influence what an individual should attend to and know about public affairs, and that the individual perceives the primary group to "prescribe" the…

Describes how a social worker made a group treatment program a permanent part of a small, rural, junior high school in order to aid students with behavioral problems. (Author/ED)

Small group discussions can implement learning in courses comprised of very large numbers of students. Six significant components of a learning group are listed along with training suggestions for implementing a format for a free discussion type of group. (DS)

The Riverside Center in New York offers a persuasive argument that group infant care is an important step for sound child development and parental involvement. (CS)

The subjects using either the consensus model or the participative decisionmaking model had more correct decisions on the assigned task than did the same individuals deciding alone. (Author)

Through a comparative analysis of nine urban school improvement projects, it illustrates the association between patterns of constituent collaboration in the design of intervention projects and problem solving strategies and the degree of mutual adaptation, incorporation, and sustained project effectiveness. Many of the barriers to school…

This paper defines a personality construct, the "others-concept," as "a person's general expectancies or perceptions about other people along a positive-negative continuum." This construct helps conceptualize how predictions and assumptions about possible social interactions are made when the amount of information concerning…

This is a report on a study of two junior high schools in a small Midwestern city called "Avon". This industrial community serves an agricultural region. This study was undertaken as a complement to a study of two other junior high schools in a much less ordinary community and school system ("Canton") which had been previously studied. This report…

This training packet is intended to aid educators in planning and effecting positive change within the learning environment through a group problem-solving intervention process. It primarily addresses the concept of "change agentry" and how it can be used to improve the climate for learning, focusing on the role of the change agent and the…

The first part of this four-part dissertation reviews conceptual and operational approaches to human communication systems. A new conceptual model for studying communication, General Algorithm for Studying Structuring in Complex Systems (GASSICS), is developed in the second part, and an operational method for applying GASSICS is presented in part…

Seventy-nine members of several types of groups responded to questionnaires which detailed their goals and self-perceptions, and their expectations and perceptions of group leadership, norms, methods, and atmosphere. The questionnaires were administered near the beginning and again at the end (posttest N=69) of the group experience. The groups…

Post-experimental seating patterns of two coacting, cooperating, or competing laboratory groups were factorially manipulated such that groups sat near, far, or randomly with respect to each other. A propinquity-attraction model predicted intergroup evaluations only to the extent that previously determined territorial preferences were not violated.…

The use of the supervisor as a source of information for subordinate decision makers was investigated using 72 eligibility workers in a county welfare agency. Results showed work group supportiveness to be highly associated with the frequency of use and the value attached by subordinates to the supervisor as an information source, but…