Introduces the concept of powerful/powerless talk for instructors interested in incorporating this construct in their classrooms. Provides a brief summary of powerful/powerless talk literature. Offers guidelines for introducing these research findings into the curriculum. (AEW)

Ball Aptitude BAttery (BAB) scores, grades, and American College Test (ACT) scores were obtained for over 800 high school seniors. BAB scores adequately predicted academic success in 10 subject areas and on the ACT. The battery seemed valid for career planning for males, females, Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites. (Author/GDC)

Patient satisfaction with the attitudes and communication skills of first- and third-year medical students in a five-year program was found to be higher for the more advanced students and for women in general, and a weak positive correlation was found between patient and faculty assessments of the students. (MSE)

A longitudinal study of factors influencing the long-term academic persistence of 825 students beginning their postsecondary education in two-year colleges supports the importance of person-environment fit in persistence. Measures of academic and social integration most consistently correlated positively with persistence, while student precollege…

Analyzed data from low-income students (480 males, 466 females) to explore differences between those who want to have children and those who don't. Found high school women who don't want children had higher occupational and educational aspirations. The reverse was true for males who didn't want children. (BH)

Using data from the Survey of Basic Skills administered to approximately 300,000 California sixth graders, this study examines sex differences on two types of mathematics items. Probability for success is greater for girls in solving computations and for boys in solving story problems. Relationships to other influential factors are examined.

Relates the self-reported behavior of 19 mothers and 19 fathers with their ratings of the activity levels, mood quality, intensity, approach behavior, adaptability, and persistence of three- to four-year-old children. Results suggest that the child's behavior style may contribute to the parents' behavior style and that mothers and fathers may…

A comprehensive study by both baccalaureate origin and gender of entrants into U.S. medical schools reveals which institutions send substantial numbers of students to medical schools and also discloses differences in the institutional backgrounds of male and female medical students. (Author/MLW)

Child and parent adjustment to the child's primary schooling were related to six measures of social inequality: parents' occupational status, education, marital status, and cultural background, neighborhood quality, and child's sex. Outcome variables such as parental aspirations, expectations, assistance, satisfaction, and coping strategies were…

Highlights the major areas of research in mathematics education in 1983 (including problem-solving, sex and minority-group differences related to mathematics, and the school mathematics curriculum). Indicates that additional emphasis needs to be placed on technology, problem-solving, teachers' conceptions, and the teaching of algebra. (JN)

Educated Black women are often wrongly viewed as a homogeneous group, obscuring important differences of social class. Black women of different social classes do not face the same route to college. Both race and class operate within urban settings to either create or limit the options and strategies available to Blacks for attaining educational…

The Primary Grade Pupil Report was administered to 162 kindergarten through second-grade students, who rated their teachers according to whether their teacher was like the statement or not. Results indicated that this was a reliable rating form for children of this age. The 12-item scale is included. (GDC)

Reports on a study of women and minorities in the pool of potential administrators in an urban school district. Results show women still are underrepresented among educational administrators, although in this system, as many women as men aspired to administrative positions. (SA)

Summarizes five studies: (1) new sight words for computer-using children; (2) immediate rewards for correct answers with computer assisted instruction; (3) importance of parental attitude and experience to student achievement with computers; (4) Logo and adolescent females' mathematics achievement; and (5) competition versus cooperation for male…

Compared were the attributional patterns for success and failure in mathematics of 491 tenth-grade students in Papua New Guinea and Australia. Relatively few differences were found in the patterns of boys and girls or of high- and low-achieving students, but substantial differences were found between students in the two countries. (MNS)