An independent statewide study of 4,735 elementary schools, conducted after three years of the Early Childhood Education Program (ECE) in California, indicates that ECE schools have lower reading scores in grades 2 and 3 when compared to non-ECE schools. Five potential causes for this discrepancy are discussed. (CP)

Performance on high and low level objective test items were compared for two groups of business writing students. Students in individualized classes with one teacher for 50 students did as well on high level tasks as did students in traditional classes with one teacher for 25 students. (Author/GDC)

Relationships between six home environment measures, achievement and intelligence tests were examined by stepwise multiple regression analyses for a sample of 60 eight-year old children. Home variables were most successful in predicting achievement test scores, less successful regarding culture-dependent intelligence test scores, and least…

Teachers' attributions of cause for pupils' past performance were investigated under varying experimental conditions. Variables were pupils' race, sex, and past performance. Teachers' causal attributions were strongly influenced by students' race, but not by sex or past performance. Possible effects of such attributions on children's achievement…

School-level socioeconomic status (SES), racial composition, and climate were each highly related to mean school achievement; only a small proportion of the between-school variance in achievement was explained by SES and racial composition after the effect of school climate was removed. Student sense of academic futility had the highest…

As predicted, subjects scored higher on subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children which they had rated positively than on those which they had rated negatively. This positive reinforcement value effect supports the purposeful human image advanced by logical learning theory. No racial or social class differences were seen. (Author/CP)

Teachers presented four behavioral combinations--(1) verbally and nonverbally positive; (2) verbally positive and nonverbally negative; (3) verbally negative and nonverbally positive; or (4) verbally and nonverbally negative--to sixth grade students. Negative nonverbal behavior led to significantly greater performance. Teacher gender and student…

The effectiveness of precision teaching and traditional teaching were compared in high school classes. In a second experiment, students' performance improved when good performers were allowed more hours of employment. The results suggest that poor academic performance may be due to an interaction between teaching procedure and incentive…

The relative power of several variables in predicting school reading achievement was considered. Issues were raised concerning the efficacy of altering the resources allocated to a school or changing the social and racial composition of the student body as a strategy for raising achievement levels. (EVH)

The study was designed to survey the noise characteristics in residence halls housing approximately 60 young mentally retarded children and to test the effects of this noise on speech-discrimination performance of the residents. (Author/SBH)

The study sampled 145 elementary school handicapped children in order to compare a mainstreamed and self-contained special education program in a large urban school district. (Author/PHR)

WISC subtest scores of children from rural mountainous cultural areas were higher for performance skills (object assembly, picture completion) than for verbal skills (information, similarities), suggesting that social and economic deprivation influence verbal comprehension abilities more than perceptual organization skills. (RL)

Concludes that the higher the cognitive level reached and maintained by the teacher during an instructional session, the higher the mean performance of pupils following an instructional session. (Author/RL)

Competent and low ability readers were tested in reading and listening comprehension. Seventh grade students were selected, assuming that reading and listening competency are comparable at this level. After reading or listening to a folk tale, subjects recalled the important ideas. Reading and listening performance were significantly correlated.…

Sixth graders from a semirural midwestern community were randomly assigned to one of four different learning strategies--imagery, overt repetition, covert repetition, and control. Results showed that imagery instructions facilitated learning performance; overt repetition interfered with performance; and covert repetition was similar to the control…