National Merit Scholars, chosen in 1956 and 1957, were studied to assess career progress made by highly gifted students 7 to 8 years after they had entered college and to identify factors that possibly contributed to the differential progress observed. Before entering college, each of the 368 subjects was asked what level of education he intended…

A previous study was successful in designing an instrument to measure motivation which can be used with preschool children. The purpose of the present research was (1) to develop further the new instrument by giving it an initial trial on a substantial number of subjects, (2) to select and revise the test items on the basis of item analysis, and…

In organizational settings, research has shown the relationship of task characteristics to attitudes and motivation. This study examines the external validity of the task characteristic-outcome relationship in an educational setting. Subjects were 206 undergraduate psychology students. They were given an inventory of seven task characteristics…

Previous research has suggested that identical performances by men and women are often evaluated differently. Men with high-quality accomplishments are perceived more positively than women, while unsuccessful men are rated more negatively than their female counterparts. This study extended the research by including elderly stimulus persons to…

Ninety-six educable mentally retarded individuals (10-16 years old) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions to listen to a 20-sentence story. Picture Ss viewed illustrations of the story, Imagery Ss were instructed to generate mental pictures of the story, Repitition Control Ss heard each sentence of the story twice, and…

From a review of some 70 relevant studies, characteristics are identified that have been shown to influence student achievement. These include both characteristics of the learning environment and characteristics of the teacher. The "ideal" reading program that emerges is characterized by small classes; adequate space, materials, and physical…

The study investigated the effect of weekly instructor monitoring of a curriculum calendar on student progress within the individualized, competency-based Mountain-Plains office education program. Subjects were adult members of disadvantaged families and included all Mountain-Plains students entering office education career preparation between…

Major sex differences in occupational and educational attainment are summarized and a rationale and supporting evidence presented for reducing such sex differences by strengthening across-sex task interaction and reward interdependence in school classrooms, thus strengthening across-sex peer influence. An experimental design is suggested, though…

Investigated was the effect of training in precision teaching and interaction analysis on the performance of eight moderately retarded 10- to 20-year-old pupils. Seven hypotheses were formulated regarding two questions: Do rates of teacher-selected teacher and pupil behavior differ before, during, and after feedback conditions? Do rates of three…

Individual differences in the ordered recall of list of digits are examined experimentally. The resulting evidence argues that neither differences in rehearsal strategies nor differences in the tendency to group and chunk the digits are major determinants of differences in digit span size. Further experiments attempt to pinpoint the source of…

This study examined the impact of letter grading on student attitudes toward composition in freshman English. One treatment group received letter grades on twelve compositions written during the course of the study and the other group received no letter grades. Both groups were treated identically in all other ways, including the use of positive…

Ninety-six female introductory psychology students differing in terms of the dimensions of neuroticism-stability and introversion-extraversion performed two sets of thirty trials each on a choice reaction time task. On one of the sets of trials the Ss were observed by two female observers and on the other set of trials the observers were not…

The separate and comparative effectiveness of two procedures, remote auditory prompting (RAP) and videotape self-monitoring (VSM), for training 14 adult aides to use behavior modification with institutionalized retarded children were examined. A two-group, multiple baseline design with baseline, training, and followup phases was employed with…

The effects of dropping out of the University of Washington on an individual's later life style were investigated by means of an eight page questionnaire responded to by 94 members of the class of 1966. Differences due to ability and sex as well as graduation versus dropout were investigated. Differences are reported in leisure time activities,…

This study sought to determine whether insular Puerto Ricans given English language training prior to taking the tests of the Army Classification Battery (ACB) show higher measured potential than those who take the tests before receiving the special English language training. ACB test scores were obtained on two samples of insular Puerto Ricans,…