The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of teacher expectancy on student performance. The question is asked: Do teachers in secondary grades treat students for whom they have low expectations in ways that tend to fulfill them, and if so, what is the nature of this differential treatment? Differential teacher behavior (quantitative and…

This booklet is an annotated bibliography of recent work about the reading performance of Black-English-speaking children. The first half of the book lists materials according to the factors that influence the reading performance of black children: dialect interference, intellectual ability, environment, perceptual deficiencies, self-concept,…

Three empirical studies were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that the "easy to see" construction (such as in the sentence "children are hard to understand") is acquired at a younger age than the 7-9 year range reported by previous studies (Cambon and Sinclair, 1974; Chomsky, 1969; 1972; Cromer, 1970; Kessel, 1970).…

This study investigates selectivity in teacher education. Using perspectives afforded by institutional admissions practices, teacher effectiveness research, and selected public school influences, the study explored both current policies and procedures in the selection of preservice students and the usefulness of a number of biographical,…

This is an interim progress report on an ongoing study of teaching-learning interaction. The function of the study is to observe learning over a full year of schooling, focusing, in part, on reciprocal interactions. The teaching-learning interaction program is committed to three long-term objectives. Methodologically, it is developing improved…

Eighty three applicants for empployment in a hardware supply manufacturing company participated in a study of the effects of anxiety, praise and the awareness of time remaining on employment testing. Two control groups and three testing groups--praise, time, and praise and time--were administered the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB), a…

The effects of two interdependent group contingencies, group-average and group-individual, on math performance and verbal interaction were investigated. In a group-average contingency the average performance of the members of the group must meet a set criterion level. In a group-individual contingency each member of the group must meet a set…

A group of supervisors of student-teachers developed a list of competencies that educators of student-teachers should be able to demonstrate and then developed activities, or indicators, that would allow educators to demonstrate these competencies in their own subject areas. The competency indicators/activities were tested by English supervisors…

The trend toward establishing minimal competency requirements for high school graduation led the Speech Communication Association to establish a task force that would recommend what speaking and listening skills should be required of high school graduates in the United States. This paper describes the work of that task force, indicating the…

To determine the relationship between age and risk taking for community college students, 74 male and 72 female students, ranging from 18-79 years of age, took a vocabulary test in which six "nonsense" items were interspersed among 54 legitimate items (following Slakter's procedure). Test instructions explained a penalty would be levied for…

Eight hypothetical college instructors were evaluated by 174 white and 129 black college students. Each instructor's teaching performance was described using statements of predetermined favorability. Three levels of teaching performance, good, average, and poor were described. Instructor race was manipulated through the use of photographs. Three…

Four papers are included in this document concerning the structure of linguistic input to children. Dan Slobin's paper, "Questions of Language Development in Cross-Cultural Perspective," suggests that children everywhere acquire basic grammatical competence in the first five or six years of life, regardless of social milieu or linguistic…

A random half of the instructors of an introductory course in computer programming were given feedback from students' evaluations of instructional effectiveness conducted at the middle of the term. The impact of the feedback was assessed against three criteria: (1) change in students' evaluations between mid-quarter and end-of-quarter; (2)…

Teaching is an omnibus profession, but each teacher is a self-sufficient individual and many yardsticks are needed to measure competence in this role. The evaluation of a teacher should, in principle, be bound to what students learn and to the attitudes and values they hold over the long haul. In practice, however, we tend to separate teaching…

A series of studies carried out in Aberdeen, Scotland and Lancaster England is used to illustrate changing interests in the area of personality and learning. The early studies looked for general relationships, adopting a psychometric approach. Recent work has been focused more on the process of learning, particularly in higher education, and on…