The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument that measures student knowledge of Afro-American history and culture. The major hypothesis was that students enrolled in Black Studies would be more knowledgeable about Afro-American history. Results support the hypothesis. (Author/HMV)

The practicum was designed to determine if teachers' skills in the area of hyperactivity management could be significantly increased by providing a series of in-service training workshops. The training program was aimed at increasing knowledge about the causes of, and programs associated with, hyperactivity, and also at promoting feelings of…

As part of an ongoing program of research to identify the difficulties encountered by novice programmers and to develop teaching strategies to help them overcome these obstacles, researchers employed a scaffolded interview procedure with 20 high school students enrolled in the second semester of a year-long BASIC course. Investigators presented…

Questionnaires designed to tap misconceptions of the content of psychology courses can serve as pedagogical devices useful for introducing students to topics and for evaluating student learning. The topic of sleep and dreams is of particular interest to students. To develop a useful introductory tool and to evaluate students' knowledge of sleep,…

Depression is a serious health problem and efforts are being made to educate laypeople in relevant ways about symptoms and the course of the disorder, availability of treatments, and related coping strategies. These programs have typically been initiated based more on assumptions regarding community knowledge of depression than on factual data.…

Considerable evidence has been found to support the hypothesis that actors' and observers' attributions diverge. It is also becoming clear that this divergence is not the result of a single process, but is the result of factors which co-occur and differentiate actors from observers. Observers' beliefs about their similarity to actors were…

The study was conducted to determine if (1) teachers and students in education curricula with completion of a course in characteristics of handicapping conditions held more positive attitudes toward handicapped persons than those who had not completed the course and (2) if graduate students or in-service teachers held more positive attitudes…

Colleges should continue to be the manufacturers of conceptual tools and the sources of knowledge renewal, creative criticism, and reflective learning. Overzealous innovative attempts that ignore these functions are bound to become vacuous. (Author/PG)

In experiments on individual differences in learning, knowledge prerequisites and learning strategies have been shown to be important factors. The author questions whether learning optimization should rely on direct measures from outside the learner or should elucidate and strengthen the individual's capacity for learning decisions. He proposes to…

The understanding of students between the ages of 16 and 18 about the ozone layer--what it is, what will damage it, and what will be the likely result of such damage--was studied through a closed-form Likert type questionnaire. The authors explain that although most of the students seem well informed about the nature of the ozone layer, some…

The patterns of use of computer-based communication technologies in knowledge synthesis are described by looking at the way groups use the technology for efforts that have at least some qualities of knowledge synthesis. A chart of basic options for communication through computers is provided, showing the generic class of systems, examples of…

This paper discusses a survey undertaken to determine conceptions of psychology held by college students in an introductory social science course. Twenty-nine students were queried at the beginning of the course regarding the open-ended question, "If Esso garages were to invite a psychologist to improve the efficiency of petrol pump attendants,…

In this study of how children select content to use in producing stories, the information children knew about three problem-solving situations was compared to the information they included in their stories about these situations. Twenty children at each of three age levels (6, 9, and 12 years) were interviewed individually. Within each age group,…