There is a common assertion that if you can find out what teachers' problems are, you have gained enormously valuable insight into their world and are in a position to help them at some level to consider and thus accept, reduce, or eliminate those problems. This assertion has provided the basis for studies over the past 10 years. This report…

In order to investigate learning theories, media researchers need to explore three variables: (1) the psychological requirements of a given learning task, (2) individual differences in cognitive style, and (3) specific media characteristics. It is necessary to identify the psychological processes which underlie any specific learning task in order…

Any theory of information processing must address both what is processed and how that processing takes place. Most studies investigating variables which alter physical dimension utilization have ignored the large individual differences in selective attention or cue utilization. A paradigm was developed using an individual focus on information…

This study examines the degree to which young children are influenced by the familiarity of an adult participant in their pretend play with toys which vary in resemblance to highly prototypical objects (e.g., cup-like cups or doll-like dolls). A group of 29 children, mean age 21 months, was divided into two experimental groups balanced by sex; 15…

The purpose of this study was to design a prototype written test of cognitive development based on the model of Piaget. Although the results were not consistent with Piaget's theory, test development was only partially successful. Specifically, validation of the scales was excellent or poor depending on the perspective. Analysis of the item…

Two studies examined the effectiveness of pupillary measurements to indicate cognitive processes in educable mentally retarded (EMR) and nonretarded elementary and high school students. In the first study, pupillary scores from 20 nonretarded and 10 EMR students were measured for two conditions of an auditory task: listening and remembering.…

Probably as a result of America's "socialization" process, girls and women have tended to develop rather negativistic views of females. That this negativism may be part of a developmental indoctrination process is further advanced by the present experiment's finding that older girls in this experiment demonstrated significantly less favorable…

The performance of instructor pilots and student pilots was compared in two visual scanning tasks. In the first task both groups were shown slides of T-37 instrument displays in which errors were to be detected. Instructor pilots detected errors faster and with greater accuracy than student pilots, thus providing evidence for the validity of the…

A competency inventory was used to determine those Adult Basic Education (ABE) teacher competencies which should be used as a basis for determining ABE Teacher Certification Standards for the State of Colorado. The survey instrument consisted of 170 previously established and validated statements of teacher competency. A sample of 36 ABE teachers…

Review of reversal learning data obtained from Ss of various developmental phases suggested that overtraining increases perseveration in pre-school children, and decrease perseveration in older (e.g., 1st grade) children. The present experiment tested this apparent trend. Children of two age groups (X = 4 yrs., 4 mos., vs. X = 6 yrs., 5 mos.)…

This paper presents a study designed to determine whether or not parents' attitudes and children's intelligence scores affect children's reactions to television programs. Preschool children's behavior before, during, and after the viewing of two half-hour television programs, "Sesame Street" and "Polka Dot Door," was compared.…

Planning, funding and operating anti-poverty programs require skilled community organizers. Training organizers deals with problems of how to motivate others and what tactics should be used when difficulty is encountered. Two approaches to these problems determined by images of 20th Century Man have been employed: (1) rational economic man who…

The greater part of this paper is dedicated to a non-technical discussion and criticism of the principles of Skinnerian behaviorism. Various aspects of the theory are examined, and its inability to deal with verbal behavior as a productive and creative activity is asserted. The author's point of view is that expressed by Noam Chomsky in his…

An extensive investigation of elementary school classrooms was conducted through the collection and statistical analysis of student and teacher responses to questions concerning the educational environment. Several asepcts of the classroom are discussed, including the spatial, thermal, luminous, and aural environments. Questions were organized so…

The New York State Center for Migrant Studies conducted this 1968 study which investigated effects of token reinforcers on reading and arithmetic skills learnings of migrant primary school students during a 6-week summer school session. Students (Negro and Caucasian) received plastic tokens to reward skills learning responses. Tokens were traded…