Quality circles have proliferated in organizations throughout the 1980s, but their success depends on careful planning and monitoring, and on an awareness of social psychology and group dynamics. This presentation accordingly evaluates some of the assumptions of the literature on quality circles and suggests ways in which social psychology…

A project was designed to reduce the turnover of direct care staff in a community-based residential facility that provides a home and educational or adult day training services for 54 severely or profoundly mentally and physically handicapped children and adults. The project sought to reduce total staff turnover by 40%, reduce employee…

Conation is a domain of behavior or mental processes associated with goal directed action. Wholistic education stresses an integrated approach to an individual's learning process; thus, consideration of the integration of the four domains (cognitive, affective, psychomotor and conative) can find a receptive niche among educators who seek to…

This staff development resource guide provides listings of instructional television and radio broadcasts related to major areas of the Total Teaching Act in South Carolina's Program for Effective Teaching (PET). Television program topics include: administration; adult education; the arts; career education; certificate-renewal credit courses;…

Strategies for preparing principals to participate in teacher selection and induction are offered in this guidebook for administrator education faculty. Three general areas are discussed: (1) reasons for principal involvement in teacher selection and orientation; (2) development of an effective selection process; and (3) structuring an induction…

Personal futures planning is a tool for fostering new ways of thinking about people with developmental disabilities. Futures planning helps groups of people focus on opportunities for people with disabilities to develop personal relationships, have positive roles in community life, increase their control of their own lives, and develop the skills…

The director of a child care center implemented and evaluated a 10-week practicum intervention designed to provide orientation and training experiences for the center's staff. About one third of the staff were part-time college students; one third were full-time workers with no degree; and one third were full-time professionals with college…

This study hypothesized that male counselors whose sexual orientation and physical characteristics do not conform to conventional notions of masculinity (those who have had homosexual experiences and who do not fit the mesomorphic ideal) will be less traditional in their gender role attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs than those who adhere to more…

In longitudinal studies, the same variables must be measured, in the same way, on at least two occasions. Research personnel are very important in keeping the necessary continuity of the procedures and the comparability of the measurements over time. As staff turnover can create serious problems, this paper suggests several strategies for reducing…

Five card games for use in beginning to advanced level Chinese language classrooms or outside the classroom are described. The games require a flat playing surface, the prescribed deck of cards, and three to five students. Instructor supervision is minimal for all but one of the games, and all provide healthy competition and fun with a purpose.…

Two combined preparation and induction programs for teacher candidates at Memphis State University (Tennessee), the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program and the Lyndhurst program, utilize a mentoring approach to professional development for program interns and beginning teachers. Each candidate has two mentors: a pedagogical mentor from the…

Results of student and parent assessments of a 1986 summer orientation at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, are presented. A total of 805 students and 372 parents completed an evaluation form that used a Likert scale. Of the 18 questions, 7 were identical for both students and parents. These concerned the overall rating of the…

Seven objectives were identified for the development of the Franklin County/Ohio State University Induction Project: (1) analyze existing research on beginning teachers and induction programs; (2) synthesize existing analyses of follow-up studies conducted in schools, colleges, and departments of education over the past decade; (3) synthesize…

This beginning teacher program is a combination of a support and training program for first-year teachers in 12 school districts in Kansas. Participation is required and the program features regular meetings with the building principal, a year-long, performance-based skill training program, and a set of performance tasks which ask the beginning…

This document summarizes the contents of two comprehensive reports, "Review of Related Research" and "Survey of Beginning Teachers and Their Employing Public Schools." Three types of studies were examined in reviewing literature on research about the needs of first-year teachers: (1) "Teacher Reflections,"…