Students must have uninterrupted periods of time to process information, to reflect on what has been said, observed, or done, and to consider what their personal responses will be. After at least three seconds of uninterrupted silence, a significant number of positive outcomes occur for students and teachers. Students are more effective in…

Anger is a natural and healthy human emotion when managed effectively. But it can be a source of various physical, mental, emotional, social, or legal problems when not managed effectively. It is often a problem in one of these areas that brings a client in for counseling, either on a voluntary or a mandated basis. As a counselor, there are…

Web-based surveying is very attractive for many reasons, including reducing the time and cost of conducting a survey and avoiding the often error prone and tedious task of data entry. At this time, Web-based surveys should still be used with caution. The biggest concern at present is coverage bias or bias resulting from sampled people either not…

Traditionally, stress has been defined in terms of its sourceinternal, such as hunger, pain, sensitivity to noise; and externalseparation from family, change in family composition, exposure to conflict or violence. Although the research literature tends to focus on the impact of single-variable stressors on children's development, in real-life…

Traditionally, stress has been defined in terms of its source (internal, such as hunger, pain, sensitivity to noise and external, such as separation from family, change in family composition, exposure to conflict or violence). Although the research literature tends to focus on the impact of single-variable stressors on children's development, in…

This Digest describes four types of errors in mail surveys and summarizes the ways they can be reduced. Any one of these sources of error can make survey results unacceptable. Sampling error is examined through inferential statistics applied to sample survey results. In general, increasing sample size will decrease sampling error when simple…

This digest offers tips on designing questionnaires and on avoiding common design errors. The following useful suggestions are offered: (1) keep the questionnaire brief and concise; (2) get feedback on the initial list of questions developed; (3) locate personal or confidential questions at the end of the questionnaire; (4) put categories in…

This digest reports recent findings on violent television content, highlights the recently developed television ratings system, and offers suggestions for parental mediation of children's television viewing. The National Television Violence Study has demonstrated that not all violence is equal. Certain plot elements in portrayals of violence are…

Many different strategies and skills for anger management intervention have been tried and tested. Some of the most empirically supported interventions are cognitive-behavioral interventions including relaxation coping skills, cognitive interventions, behavioral coping and social skills training, and problem-solving skills training. This digest…

Numerous structured programs exist for helping clients learn to manage their anger more effectively. These programs vary in intended audience, theoretical basis, teaching method, and actual skills and techniques used. A review of several structured programs follows. It is important to remember that prior to selecting an intervention, one must…

Although reading and writing exist only in relation to each other, writing plays little or no role in the usual instructional approaches to reading. Mostly, reading is taught as a sequence of discrete skills, which is ineffective since it accommodates the analytic reading style to the exclusion of global, kinesthetic, and auditory styles. Reading…

This digest discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using item banks, and it provides useful information for those who are considering implementing an item banking project in their school districts. The primary advantage of item banking is in test development. Using an item response theory method, such as the Rasch model, items from multiple…

Although many teachers force-feed the "meaning" of poetry to puzzled students or teach poetry by way of dissecting poetic techniques, more productive approaches to the study of poetry exist, as reflected in the literature in the ERIC database. Units of study can be organized around particular kinds of inquiry instead of around a literary…

Noting that the death of a loved one brings grief to children as well as adults, this Digest draws on research to examine how children respond to death and the role of parents and teachers in helping children cope with loss. The Digest delineates children's "tasks" during mourning that are essential to their adjustment to loss, such as…

Self-regulation of behavior generally refers to controlled, cognitive monitoring of the actions and steps required to obtain a goal, or to bring about a desired response from the environment. Age-related changes in self-regulation as well as individual differences at a given age or developmental stage play fundamental roles in shaping children's…