Each of 76 unacquainted pairs of male-female college students was given a popular issue to discuss for five minutes. Self-perceived agency was significantly associated with verbal assertiveness: high-agency persons used fewer indirect statements and fewer passive self-references than low-agency persons. (Author/LHW)

Excepts from THE LANGUAGE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN (Penguin, 1973), which evolved from a project initiated by the English Committee of the Schools Council of England and conducted under the direction of Mrs. Connie Rosen; focuses on the talk of primary school children in the presence of a teacher. (Author/JM)

This study investigates those features of adult-child verbal interaction which are associated with high verbal ability. These aspects include: (1) Who initiates adult-child dialogues? (2) How long are they? and, (3) What are the parent's attitudes toward school achievement? (JM)

Research supported in part by U.S.P.H.S. General Research Support grant 1-501-FR-5432-04, Graduate Psychiatry Training grant 3-TI-MH 5557-17-81; and by Children's Bureau Handicapped Child Research grant 11-4637.

Traces the development of an approach to studying face-to-face interaction that proposes to expound the rules or procedures of interaction and to account for observed behavior in terms of how it functions as a communicational system. A selective literature review and recommendations for further study are included. (EJS)

Presents a framework for the analysis of verbal interaction between teacher and pupils in primary-level English as a foreign language (EFL) lessons. Attempts to illuminate the support to learning which can be offered by the teacher's responsiveness to pupils. The research data-base includes audio and video tapes from EFL classes in Malaysia,…

Two experiments investigating the efficiency of communication between 5th grade children from differing socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds are described. In each experiment, 40 same-sex pairs, half male and half female, were formed into dyadic groupings by combining lower- and middle-SES children into the four possible speaker-listener combinations.…

The verbal interaction of 31 middle class early adolescent boys and their parents was analyzed in order to provide information concerning adolescent autonomy. The boys were independently and reliably classified on the basis of age, physical maturity, and intellectual level. The taped interactions were coded for interruptions, talking times,…

This study examines age and sex differences in nurturant behaviors displayed toward a male infant by 60 subjects, both male and female, from three age groups: preschoolers, preadolescents, and young adults. The infant was 12 months old at the onset of the study and 16 months when the testing was completed. Each subject was videotaped for seven…

TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT THE VERBAL BEHAVIOR OF STUDENT TEACHERS IN THE CLASSROOM DOES NOT CHANGE IN RELATION TO THE VERBAL BEHAVIOR OF THEIR COOPERATING TEACHER, A VERBAL-BEHAVIORAL MEASUREMENT OF 12 STUDENT TEACHERS AND 6 COOPERATING TEACHERS WAS UNDERTAKEN USING THE OBSERVATION SCHEDULE AND RECORD FORM 3D. ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE REVEALED THAT…

FOUR GROUPS OF 15 STUDENT TEACHERS EACH WERE USED TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT (A) THOSE TAUGHT INTERACTION ANALYSIS WOULD BE MORE INDIRECT (ACCEPTING OF PUPIL FEELINGS AND IDEAS, ENCOURAGING, QUESTIONING) AT THE END OF STUDENT TEACHING THAN THOSE TAUGHT LEARNING THEORY, AND (B) AMONG THOSE TAUGHT INTERACTION ANALYSIS, THOSE SUPERVISED BY…

This study was concerned with investigating patterns of verbal interaction of teachers and students who were matched and mismatched in field dependent and field independent cognitive styles. The first objective was to answer the general research question: Is there a difference in the patterns of dyadic classroom interaction when the teacher and…

The papers in this collection were initially presented in two successive conferences that dealt with the collection, use, and reporting of spoken language for educational research. The ten papers deal with the method and procedures used in studying talk in a school situation; an analysis of the interaction between the researcher and a group of…

This report describes a study investigating the extent to which 2- and 3-year-olds, as they acquire language, continue to use infant nonverbal sharing behaviors (pointing, holding up, giving and partner play) or begin to use language to share in new ways. A group of 2- and 3-year-olds (12 of each) were observed in a playroom setting of three…

The parents of a six-year-old disruptive boy were observed interacting with their son during 20 assessment-oriented, 10-minute experimental sessions. An experimental design consisting of alternately arranged baseline and self-monitoring conditions was utilized. Following the reversal-to-baseline phase, parents were given specialized training in…