A systems approach to instruction has been used at Kankakee Community College (Illinois). Behavioral objectives are emphasized, and a learning laboratory furnishes audiotutorial experiences. (MS)

Presents an approach to the development and use of a planning, evaluation, and improvement model for schools and districts, which involves three phases: establishing goals and priorities; the School-Improvement Evaluation Process of the North Central Association; and follow-up response. (AYC)

The authors explain how interaction analysis can extend existing methods of analyzing negotiations by examining economic bargaining theories. They code the transcript of a negotiation using two coding schemes and apply Markov chain analysis to the results. (Author/SK)

Describes a systems framework for conceptualizing and delivering paradoxical interventions (where the counselor tells the family what to do with the expectation of noncompliance) during family therapy. Notes appropriate times for use of paradox, and potential problems with this intervention. (WAS)

This concise survey of the vast literature currently available in field-of-systems thinking and cybernetics discusses the areas of systems philosophy, systems analysis (mathematical systems theory), empirical systems research, and systems engineering, and outlines contributions of selected scholars. A bibliography of 148 books and papers is…

Attention is directed to identification of the various individuals and groups ("constituencies") with an interest in system performance, and to the investigation of those items of system relevant information (their "performance measure sets") which do, in fact, change their evaluations of how well the system is performing. (Author/RL)

Discusses research in counseling and psychotherapy, analyzes and critiques the most popularly used meta-models, i.e. those that guide and delimit applied theory, and research. Develops and advocates the use of a systems paradigm for future research. (RC)

Applications of the systems approach in the form of systems technologies are seen as having a mixed record in the management of universities. Some of the major issues challenging the general systems approach are reviewed. An incentive systems model is presented. (Author/MLW)

Suggests the adaptation of general systems methodology to the design of information technology transfer mechanisms as a way of aiding the scientific and technical achievements of developing nations. Twenty-seven references are cited. (FM)

Argues that learning is an invariant process best understood from a dialectical perspective which demands that learning be viewed as an interaction between the organism and the environment. This view is contrasted with traditional operant approaches and with a Piagetian approach. (Author/DB)

Discusses economics as a mechanistic theory and the systems approach as a functionalist theory. Relevant literature is reviewed and a synthesis of the two types of theories is presented. (Author/DB)

The Boston Children's Museum has a participatory exhibit called City Slice. Visitors experience a three-story exhibit of a house, street, and yard with cross-section views that reveal changing needs and design issues over the century from Victorian Boston to the present. (Author/MLF)

Discusses the role of the Human Services Center in synthesizing and integrating program components of a counselor education program. Three functions as a synthesizing element, as a control element, and as a feedback element are discussed. A rationale is presented linking the operation of the Center to systems theory. (Author)

It is suggested that the complexities entailed in an analysis of life span attachment require consideration of so many interacting variables that a systems approach of some kind is needed for a beginning integration. (MS)