Health contracting is a useful structure to guide and facilitate lifestyle and behavior changes and to promote self-control and responsibility. An investigation of college students' attempts to change health behaviors through contracting is reported. Health instruction and contracts appear to affect, and to have some lasting effects on, students'…

Describes the Washington State University Writing Project, drawing attention to those features that differ from the Bay Area Writing Project model. Highlights how the Washington model promoted institutionalization of the inservice gains of the project participants. (HOD)

Evaluated effects of using conduct problem adolescents (N=18) as cross-age tutors for elementary school-aged mentally retarded students. When compared to students who received peer tutoring or group counseling, cross-age tutors improved significantly on social science and language arts grades, and had reduced rates of absenteeism and disciplinary…

Argues that political speech-making can have significant impact. Surveyed audiences of four presidential candidates during the 1976 Illinois primary. Analyzed attitude/behavior changes and motivations for attendance. Noted that, while the strongest motivations were of a cognitive-orientation nature, reasons related to event excitement were…

Describes how the faculty in the geography department at University College London used group analysis to improve discussion about their teaching objectives in an effort to change their undergraduate teaching program. (RM)

Assessed the effects of participation in a Big Sisters' Program. The first part consisted of interviews (N=20) with pairs of Big Sisters-Little Sisters. The second part evaluated program effectiveness experimentally. Findings indicated positive relationships between pairs, and improved behavior of experimental girls versus controls. (RC)

If health education is to develop into a discipline that increases the competencies of people to implement decisions about health behaviors, the development of a paradigm that can be used as an alternative to the behavior change paradigm is required. Several models of behavior change are presented. (JN)

Clients (N=15) received insight-oriented therapy and 15 others received behavior therapy for three months. Results showed positive client change for both therapy types, and follow-up testing indicated client improvement was sustained up to one year. Process measurement indicated relational factors were more influential than therapy type.…

Found that senior citizens in a residential setting with in-house nursing services emphasizing health education had significantly greater health knowledge and behaviors than those in residences receiving traditional nursing services. All study participants reported having obtained health information in an individual (rather than a group) setting.…

Assesses both the contact hypothesis and the superordinate goal hypothesis through an examination of interracial interaction on a desegregated high school football team. The research shows that one can be resocialized to accept and use new value codes and interaction patterns toward members of another race. (NEC)

Evaluated physically healthy and emotionally stable men over a 30-year period from middle to old age. Increase in mean scores on the depression scale of the MMPI reflected realistic bodily concerns and physical illness. This group manifested personality strengths in middle age and functioned well in old age. (Author)

The roles of the school, health education programs, and health education research in decreasing the risk of cardiovascular and heart disease are discussed. (CJ)

Self-help groups of elderly persons (N=42), who had been blind for several years, met by phone for short-term problem solving and discussion of coping methods. Results indicated task-centered assignments helped the majority meet their goal of decreasing feelings of hopelessness and increasing social activities outside of the home. (Author)

Health education at the college level has developed a variety of new curriculum approaches which emphasize behavior change. With the assumption that life-style contributes most to student health, a health course divided into four parts--diagnosis, prescription, action, and accountability--was developed. An attitude survey acted as an evaluation…

Individuals who had undergone treatment for alcoholism (N=76) completed a 91-item questionnaire including items relating to family situation and satisfaction and a number of personality and interpersonal variables. Data analysis indicated that the quality of family relationships influenced improvement in drinking behavior and interpersonal…