To determine the extent to which toddlers are aware of their friends' qualities, mothers of two groups of toddler preschoolers were interviewed about which of her child's classmates is talked about at home and what her child typically says about his or her peers. The children had been observed for several months prior to the interviews to identify…

Personal effects felt by participant-observers as a result of their research and the impact of such effects on researcher self-concept are analyzed. Quotes from participant-observers who have studied various social phenomena indicate that they experienced transition and conflict between their observer and participant roles. At times they were…

The Service Delivery Assessment (SDA) model is a human services evaluation tool which offers a viable alternative to more traditional approaches and is appropriate for small local evaluations as well as large national studies. There are five phases to an SDA study: assignment, pre-assessment, design, analysis, and communication of the findings.…

Preschoolers' expression of various emotions and overall social-emotional competency may be related to mothers' emotional responsivemness to children's emotions. This research investigated, through extended naturalistic observation, (1) how maternal emotion displays differ according to antecedent child emotion (happy, sad, angry, or afraid) and…

The perspectives of researchers, teachers, and students in a research project attempting to implement wait time in high school classrooms were examined. This study investigates, via participant observation, the inner workings of a highly successful research group. Observation, interviews, and surveys were used to study the workings of the research…

Decision making about an observational recording system for family interaction research is crucial. Alternative coding-recording methods and combinations thereof are discussed, including: (1) paper-and-pencil on-site method; (2) video-tapes; (3) paper-and-pencil and mechanical coding devices; (4) transcripts; and (5) transcripts combined with…

A 6-month, qualitative study of the nature of literate behavior in the pretend play episodes of eight preschool children resulted in a taxonomy of their pretend play activity. Data were gathered in a setting where teachers implemented a cognitively oriented curriculum that encouraged language development and problem solving through play.…

The Quality Assurance Program for Learning Resources Specialists is part of the Houston, Texas, Plan for Excellence and addresses the renewal and professional growth opportunities for the specialists. The program is administered by a bi- or tri-dimensional assessment team that may consist of the principal, an instructional supervisor, and the…

Social participation behavior of 33 2- and 3-year-old children was observed during free-play in order to identify differences between age groups as well as differences between contemporary outcomes and Parten's 1932 findings. Trained observers recorded the frequencies of play behaviors, utilizing a time sampling procedure and Parten's categories…

Naturally occurring interactions recorded during participant observation in two preschools were analyzed in order to develop a distinctively sociological theory of gender identity acquisition. Attention was focused on the use of sex-categorical terms and the "grammar" of sex categorization practices underlying this usage. The analysis…

Four questions guided this study of 11 noisy and/or overactive preschool boys: (1) Would children considered to be at risk for later diagnosis be more overactive than children who were not considered at risk? (2) How might parent/child social interchanges be categorized in a preschool population? (3) Would parent/child social interchanges be…

A discussion of the use of generative phonology in the speech clinic, especially with children, begins with an outline of some constructs of generative phonology. First, some notes on phonetic notation and definitions of terms used in nongenerative phonology that have special meanings in this field are presented. Then a discussion of distinctive…

The paper reviews research on methods for assessing social skills in handicapped (specifically severely handicapped) students. The authors cite studies critical of much current social skills training. The need for social validity of behavior and for additional measures of adaptive behavior proficiency is pointed out. Types of target behaviors for…

This report introduces the concept of a "metacourse"--i.e., the provision of mental models, problem solving strategies, key concepts, and other structures--to assist students in learning programming, and examines the effect of the use of such a metacourse on high school programming students. The experimental group consisted of 6 teachers…

The applicability is explored of the Bayesian random-effect analysis of variance (ANOVA) model developed by G. C. Tiao and W. Y. Tan (1966) and a method suggested by H. K. Suen and P. S. Lee (1987) for the generalizability analysis of autocorrelated data. According to Tiao and Tan, if time series data could be described as a first-order…