This speech articulates one practitioner's assumptions and recommendations concerning desirable preschool education practices and learning environments. It is suggested that reliance on experts such as child development specialists and curriculum planners may limit teachers' access to students as ideosyncratic individuals. Teachers might do better…

This document contains six modules designed for use in a training program for the improvement of teachers' classroom observation skills. Module One, "Introduction to Module on Improving Observation Skills," consists of line drawings used by the workshop leader to illustrate his explication of the intervention process. Module Two, "Improving Basic…

Qualitative/naturalistic inquiry intends to discover whatever naturally occurring order exists rather than to test various theories or conceptual frameworks held by the investigator. Naturalistic, ecological data are urgently needed concerning the behavior of educational administrators. Such data can considerably change the knowledge base of the…

Summaries of papers presented in a symposium deal with a related series of four issues concerning the development of maternal attachment: Is maternal attachment best conceptualized and measured as an emotional tie or as observable behavior? Is there continuity in the development of maternal attachment from the prenatal to postpartum period? Can…

The author argues here that progress toward greater validity in description through increasingly specifiable standards for quality control is crucial for the advancement of theory as well as for the improvement of method in descriptive studies of classroom life. Some standards for judging the validity of descriptions of classroom action are…

A National Institute of Mental Health project was initiated in 1964 at the University of New Mexico to prepare educational administrators to become community change agents. The 10 fellows appointed to the program received training in applications of the social sciences to administration, with concentration on concepts of community organization and…

This study attempts to determine the effectiveness of a self-appraisal guide in an inservice education program for elementary teachers as measured by pupil achievement on a standardized achievement test. In one public school system in Pennsylvania an inservice education program was designed using "A Guide to the Self-Appraisal and Development of…

The etiological approach to psychological research is discussed, particularly regarding research on visual and vocal behavior. Thirty-four adult female dyads discussed topics on which they agreed and on which they disagreed. Each subject's looking and talking was recorded by observers on a computer in a time frame data structure. Data were…

Examined was the feasibility of predicting the potential for abnormal child rearing practices, including child abuse and neglect among 350 mothers. Through interviews, questionnaires, and observations during labor, delivery and the postpartum period, 100 mothers were identified as at high risk for abnormal parenting procedures. Ss were then…

The first and second years, 1974-76, of a research project on the effects of filmmaking upon children who make the films are reported here. The aims of the research were to establish: (1) the processes through which the children proceeded in the acquisition of filmmaking mastery, (2) the relationship of instructional technique to these forms of…

Systematic observations of classroom behavior of both teachers and pupils are effective measures of process in education. Until a few years ago, the classroom process--what actually does and does not happen as a result of instituting a new program--went unmeasured for want of tools and techniques to do that job. In this article, examples of…

The main purpose of this study was to develop a procedure whereby teachers might improve their interpersonal transactions with students. Concomitant purposes were to develop a limited category coding system for easy use by classroom teachers and to develop a classroom observation system for research purposes. Sixteen teachers (three primary, nine…

An analysis system was developed to facilitate the comprehensive analysis of over 800 hand-written mathematics, communications, and social studies lesson transcripts. The coding scheme facilitates the reduction of qualitative data into categorical data. The heart of the analysis system is the Dominant Instructional Event (DIE) which facilitates…

This paper describes the development and first administrations of a survey of attitudes toward policies and procedures in the evaluating of classroom teaching. The instrument was cooperatively developed by teachers, administrators, and consultants. It provides a collective picture of an ideal system of evaluation and, simultaneously, a picture of…

Variables that schools can not directly control are predictors of a significant portion of the achievement differences of children, yet some schools seem to be operating significantly better or worse than predicted in regard to pupil achievement. This observation study represents an effort to look more closely at schools in which actual pupil…