Twenty-two- and 27-month-old children were tested for their understanding of pretending as a specific intentional action form. Pairs of superficially similar behaviors--pretending to perform an action and trying to perform that action--were demonstrated to children. The 27-month-olds, and to some degree the 22-month-olds, showed in their responses…

In contrast to the many published accounts of the disfluent repetition of sounds at the beginnings of words, cases where it is predominantly the final parts of words that are repeated have been reported relatively rarely. With few exceptions, those studies that have been published have described either pre-school children or neurologically…

Many statistical models have been used to study human development. The multidimensional scaling (MDS) method has been an under-utilised technique in psychological and educational research for studying such phenomena. In this paper, MDS profile analysis was used to examine adolescent mood change patterns over a 1-week period. This method is used to…

During the past 20 years, a significant body of literature has emerged focusing on the application of Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration (TPD) to the study of gifted individuals. Although much of this literature is prescriptive, some research reports spanning this time period are available. A perusal of research on TPD's applicability…

A good deal is now known about the neural circuitry involved in how conditioned fear can augment a simple reflex (fear-potentiated startle). This involves visual or auditory as well as shock pathways that project via the thalamus and perirhinal or insular cortex to the basolateral amygdala (BLA). The BLA projects to the central (CeA) and medial…

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the phenomena of "gaming the system," where a learner attempts to succeed in an educational environment by exploiting properties of the system's help and feedback rather than by attempting to learn the material. Developing environments that respond constructively and effectively to…

The term "conative" is used to describe constructs that span both motivational and volitional aspects of human behavior, distinguished from constructs that emphasize cognition and affection. Among the conative constructs are achievement strivings, beliefs about self-esteem and self-efficacy, interests and attitudes about learning,…

The student teaching field experience has proven to be one of the most critical components of teacher preparation programs, and yet little is known about how pedagogical skills develop during this period. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine student teachers' classroom interactions over the course of a 10-week student teaching…

High and low self-monitors were given the task of applying for a position that was or was not a good fit with their personality. Subjects were 97 introductory psychology students who had previously taken the 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS). They took the SMS again--as if it were being used to decide whether they would be offered a very…

Preservice secondary teachers were assigned research on the consumer behavior and habits of junior high school students for the purpose of allowing preservice teachers to discover their own knowledge of young adolescents. Observations were made of groups of students at two typical malls in a southeastern city of around 100,000 population. The…

A review of the major literature examining human work behavior from the perspective of developmental psychology indicates that, although many issues pertaining to the meaning of the concepts of change and development are still unresolved, a great potential exists for cross-fertilization between developmental and vocational psychology. Vocational…

Peer associations within schools are important influences on educational orientations and aspirations. The many studies in this area, however, have not produced a comprehensive and detailed theoretical account of peer socialization effects, thereby impeding the design and implementation of more effective school organizations. Although schools…

This study attempts to identify potential school problems in preschool children in order to facilitate the provision of relevant information for systematic screening and early guidance. Data from the first 14 months (to the end of the preschool period) of a longitudinal study extending from 4 1/2 years of age to the end of second grade are…

This document examines eight factors perceived by the researchers to affect or explain individual and institutional behavior for a substantial number of schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs), especially in relation to current or projected knowledge production and utilization (KPU) activity. These "contextual…

A summer clinic was established which screened 425 subjects for visual and auditory disorders; those who passed these tests but who had poor academic achievement were evaluated on other measures. Of 265 students referred by their parents, 34% had faulty vision, 5% had impaired hearing, and 10% had faulty auditory discrimination. Twenty one percent…