Four hypotheses concerning the relationship between communication apprehension and four types of hand movements were formulated and tested in a study involving 74 students at an eastern university. The hand movements were emblems (hand movement not related to speech), illustrators (hand movement which accompanies speech), self-adaptors (nervous…

The correct assessment of observable student behavior is an important tool in the ongoing education process. Whether the setting is a classroom, a field experience, an activity, or a residential treatment center, proper evaluation techniques will provide information for the determination of policies and programs. The Flexible Observation…

The purpose of this presentation is to examine changing perspectives of rural development in an effort to better understand change in rural social systems and to analyze interactions between systems in general. The 1st section of this report is devoted to an analytic framework for intersystem interaction which entails a donor/recipient construct…

This study evaluated the city of Boston's Magnet Movement Athletics Program, which brought together inner city children with suburban children in a movement oriented program designed to facilitate racial harmony and the growth of positive interracial attitudes. Four hundred seventh and eighth grade black, white, and oriental children underwent a…

This study recorded the pretend play behavior of a total of 22 boys and girls aged 20 and 26 months to determine the effects of age, sex, toy type, and order of toy presentation on the amount of pretending observed during two home visits. Each visit consisted of three segments: two play episodes of 10 minutes each and an intervening segment of…

This report summarizes recommendations of a panel studying research on teaching as human interaction. Recommendations were classified into three approaches to the study of teaching which dealt with a) teacher-student interaction, b) teacher education, and c) special research problems. Two facets of research were considered to have high priority:…

A person's actions are caused by the interaction of external environmental forces and internal personal forces. Attributing actions to one or the other set of forces is a distorted view of cause. In therapy, attributing actions to external forces, particularly past events, relieves the client of guilt and makes sense out of his actions.…

The ultimate goal of this study was to specify conditions which affect achievement in the chemistry laboratory through an understanding of instructor-student interaction. The Flanders System of Interaction Analysis was used to measure the ratio of indirect to direct teaching (I/D/ Ratio) during pre-lab and post-lab sections of eight two-hour…

This document lists chapters or sections from books and handbooks to assist inservice teachers in developing their verbal interactive skills in the classroom. Minicourse lessons and plans are referred to frequently. After an initial diagnosis of the teacher's performance level, a training counselor meets with the teacher and utilizes such a list…

The use of reciprocal behavior contracts with families of behavior-problem adolescents was investigated. Most family contracting to date has involved one-way contracts; that is, the child agrees to certain responsibilities for which he will be reinforced by the parents. A reciprocal contract requires the parents, in addition to the child, to agree…

A conceptual approach toward more effective small group functioning is undertaken in this paper to provide a basis from which empirically relevant hypotheses can be drawn and tested. This analysis views actualizing individuals as possessing the unique ability to perceive and utilize the types of behaviors which are conducive to personalizing group…

In an effort to determine the effectiveness of group counseling with student nurses, 76 students enrolled in their first professional nursing course were randomly placed either in a counseling group or in a control group. As hypothesized, those students participating in the group counseling sessions received significantly higher grades in the…

This paper reports the development of a classroom observation instrument designed to broaden and extend the power of existing tools to provide a balanced, reciprocal perspective of both verbal and nonverbal communication. An introductory section discusses developments in communication analysis. The Miniaturized Total Interaction Analysis System…

Previous research on the use of interaction process analysis and microteaching in teacher education indicates that these two methods of achieving specified behavioral changes in the teaching behavior of student teachers are at least as effective, if not more so, than traditional methods. Attention now turns to the different ways that interaction…

This paper reports a study of selected examples of verbal behavior patterns in primary grade classrooms during science activities. The subjects were 32 elementary teachers within five mid-Michigan public school districts. A control group of 16 teachers taught science in the conventional manner. The experimental group received an in-depth study of…