The faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine has developed an explanation of repeated medical student failures on Part I of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) examination. They see the failures as the result of incomplete development of reasoning skills. Author/MLW)

At Columbia College, a 2-year college in California, an Early Alert program was implemented in the middle 1980s to alert students at risk of academic failure to potential problems. With the exception of a few years in the 1990s, the program has been conducted each semester. In the fourth week of the semester, instructors are asked to identify…

Students who expect success but are unwilling to work for it are a source of frustration for teachers. This book offers a set of beliefs and five processes that form the framework for classroom-friendly strategies designed to inspire motivation in students who are giving up. These beliefs are that: (1) all student are capable of learning when they…

The reasons behind this failed educational leadership and what elected officials can do to energize reform movements are described in this book. The text focuses on three questions: (1) "Why do those in high elective office expose their ignorance of the substance and history of the educational reform movement?"; (2) "Why are these…

The purpose of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, is to ensure that all children with disabilities have access to an appropriate public education. However, schools may be barring that access for many children with mental and emotional disorders by using inadequate assessment rules. Children who fail to qualify under the IDEA…

One of Matt Groening's popular cartoons offers two different perspectives regarding the purpose and value of formal education in America: "Bongo's" belief that a good education must consist of an engaging classroom environment and proper emotional, intellectual, and structural resources; and "Bongo's" father's belief that a…

The major thrust of special education today lies in early identification and treatment aimed at returning the student as soon as possible to the main street of the educational program. This project focuses on kindergarten children. (Editor)

This article describes a treatment program for psychogenic learning problems which synthesizes the functions of therapist and teacher into one helping role. Several cases illustrating different applications of the therapeutic-tutoring procedure are described. (Author/EAK)

Peer and subordinate criticism directed at the beginning industrial arts teacher ultimately leads to teacher failure. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning is used as an analogy to explain how the beginning teacher is conditioned to the norms of teaching, resulting in the loss of his enthusiam and idealism. (DS)

Study samples suggest that the high ability underachiever is characterized by low need for order and higher need to belong to supportive groups; the high ability achiever seems more independent and less attached to his peer group. (Author)

This paper specifically examines the role of causal schemata in determining achievement-related causal judgments. (Author)

Among the reasons for the present investigation were the attempt to determine the relationship among the different measures of each personality characteristic which has been hypothesized as important and to determine the relationships among the different personality characteristics. (Author/RK)

The responses of 20 trainable retarded children, 10 to 16 years of age, and 20 nonretarded 4- to 5-year-old children to social and nonsocial matching-to-sample tasks were compared during the extinction period which followed the use of social and nonsocial rewards. (Author)

Study presented tasks where above-average performance earned a positive response while below average performance meant a negative response, and where the opportunity to continue in the learning process depended on chance. (Author/RK)