A complete bibliographic reference and an abstract are provided for each of 66 publications of the Human Factors Laboratory from 1979 through 1983, including in-house and contractor-developed documents. Documents are indexed by source, author, and subject matter. Publications address such topics as adaptive training, air combat maneuvering,…

Social comparison is an important influence on motivation, capability self-evaluations (self-efficacy), and skillful performance. In addition, social comparative information provides a standard against which students can judge their present performance level. Students may experience an initial sense of self-efficacy in attaining a given standard;…

A study of 6 low-achieving and 5 high-achieving minority-isolated elementary schools in San Diego, California, identified 28 factors that appeared to make a difference in achievement levels. Thirteen were associated with time-on-task, focus, and structure, i.e. variables within the schools' control. The remainder were miscellaneous background…

In this study, 104 primarily indigent primiparous mothers from urban and rural areas and their healthy, full-term neonates were placed in one of four conditions during the normal postpartum lying-in period. Conditions were control, initial contact, rooming-in, and initial contact plus rooming-in. Dependent variables consisted of scores on the…

Adverse effects of material rewards on Wechsler subscale performance may be the result of a reward-produced developmental regression. To further explore that idea through replicating earlier findings with adults, and to extend the enquiry to children, selected Wechsler subscales were administered to 32 subjects at each of three ages (5, 10, and 18…

Individual differences in fourth grade students' abilities to profit from experimenter-provided picture adjunct aids on prose recall tasks were examined. It was hypothesized that poor paired associate learners would benefit from picture adjunct aids to a greater extent than good paired associate learners. A secondary aim was to assess the effects…

Nursing curricula and licensing examinations have shifted toward the skills and processes of nursing. When these components are overhauled, their predictive relationship must be reexamined. This research tests the causal influence of several antecedent and achievement variables on licensure test performance. A path model is developed from a theory…

The purposes of the present study were to ascertain whether or not two particular formatting characteristics influenced seventh grade student performance on math tests. One research question focused on the effects of decimal positioning in multiple choice options for computational items. In a second question, labeling format was compared with…

This document presents a review of the research on experiences outside of the classroom that may affect student achievement during the high school years, focusing specifically on the areas of family influences, peer influences, part-time employment of students, and student participation in extracurricular activities. It reports on studies of…

A performance appraisal interview is a primary and important context for the supervisor and employee to work together to achieve superior performance. A survey of the research literature reveals that the appraisal interview functions to provide feedback on performance, to counsel and provide help, to discover what the employee is thinking, to…

In a study of whether more student control and responsibility in the classroom would cause them to feel more positive about a task and to like their co-workers better, 57 undergraduates were asked to complete an 8 statement questionnaire on how much control they would be willing to allow others working with them. They were placed in pairs with…

An attempt was made to document the beginning of children's ability to make cognitive-emotional discriminations between skill-dependent outcomes and chance-dependent outcomes of performance on tasks. Children between the ages of 2 and 5 years were administered structurally similar achievement games and effect games. It was thought that as soon as…

The major purpose of this study was to describe the rule-governed and contingency-shaped behavior of learning-disabled, hyperactive, and nonselected elementary school children working on a computer-managed task. Hypotheses tested were (1) that the children would differ in the degree to which either instructions or external contingencies controlled…

A method of graphing multivariate data, called the star plot, is very useful in educational contexts because it provides teachers and guidance counselors with information not present in unsupplemented student achievement data. The utility of the method can be seen in analysis of data from a study of factors related to the problem-solving ability…

Noting that instructor and course evaluations represent important, ongoing concerns to students, faculty, and administrators in speech communication, this paper uses the experimental approach to consider the purposes of evaluations, explores major evaluation issues, reviews the literature concerning specific variables possibly related to these…