Addresses an often overlooked area of drug abuse: performance-enhancing drugs in sport, used for different reasons than for recreation. Examines the seriousness and prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs and presents the results of a series of interviews with steroid users to determine their attitudes. Discusses the implications of the…

Research on administrators' influence on the performance of their organizational units has accumulated evidence on principals' influence, but the influence of superintendents is largely neglected. Results from a sample of California school districts demonstrated that superintendents exerted little influence on academic performance. Constructing…

Defines life-span developmental psychology as the study of constancy and change in behavior throughout the life course. Advances metatheoretical view regarding development. Stresses focus on the dynamic and continuous interplay between growth (gain) and decline (loss). Examines structural contextual factors and study of range of plasticity in…

Using simulated student data, this study investigated the grading decisions and future performance expectations of faculty members from allied health programs in Texas. Results indicated that student grade-performance patterns were differentially related to assigned grades and future expectations. (Author/CH)

Evaluated the use of computer assisted instruction in teaching Fortran 77 in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. Also investigated the effect of such factors as mathematics and computer programming background on student performance in an introductory programming course sequence. (JN)

Compared the levels and patterns of performance of middle-aged, hospitalized chronic alcoholics (N=36), nonalcoholic peer controls (N=36), and a group of elderly nonalcoholic men (N=24) on a paired-associate learning task. Results showed that both the alcoholics and elderly performed significantly poorer than the middle-aged control subjects. (LLL)

Examined three aspects of career exploration (environment exploration, self-exploration, and amount of information acquired) as predictors of interview performance in graduate business students (N=78). Results showed that career exploration activities consistently predicted self-perceptions of readiness and recruiters' ratings but not self-ratings…

American and Chinese students (Grades 6 and 9) performed an auditory tracking task that required counting tone patterns alone and in pairs. The Americans tended to work harder individually, while the Chinese performed better in pairs. These findings contradict earlier suggestions that "social loafing" is a transcultural phenomenon. (KH)

Discusses the findings of five studies which investigated the effects of informal contact on classroom learners' second language abilities. These findings are discussed in terms of six factors which might have contributed to the finding in four of the five studies that informal contact did not lead to increased proficiency. (SED)

Kindergarten through eighth-grade children were presented with two revisions (luck and skill) of the Matching Familiar Figures Test. Questioning about performance of hypothetical others revealed four levels of differentiation of luck and skill. These levels showed parallels with age-related changes in conceptions of difficulty, effort, and…

This study examined whether particular strategies would enhance affective arousal and if these techniques would affect warm-up decrement during performance of a sport skill. One strategy eliminated warm-up decrement and two had no effect. Positive and negative arousal and the correlation of arousal level to warm-up decrement are explored.…

Examines the relationship between the mental effort requirement of cumulative rehearsal and spontaneous utilization of the strategy by three groups of children (mean ages 7.6, 8.7, and 11.5 years). Results showed that the mental effort requirement of strategy use may influence children's strategy selection on memory tasks. (Author/CI)

Using different methods of holding the double bass, college students performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Audio recordings of performance were rated. Muscle tension readings from the left arm, right arm, upper back, and lower back were taken, using electromyography. Results suggest nonsignificant differences in both performance quality and muscle…

This paper provides experimental demonstration of remindings during learning and examines their effect on performance, as well as effects of practice and difficulty. Three experiments examining the occurrence, effects, and conditions of remindings are presented, and the implications for theories of cognitive skill learning are discussed.…

Using a complex, computerized decision-making task, 56 university students participated in a six-week, repeated measures, goal-setting project, involving different payment systems. Results indicated that goal-contingent payment is superior to hourly payment in influencing performance, even though the perceived valence of payment and the actual…