Paper presented at the Merrill-Palmer Institute on Research and Training of Infant Development (Detroit, Mich., Feb. 15-17, 1968).

Drawn from a 1978 Speech Communication Association seminar, this collection of papers and other materials explores the subject of argumentation as epistemology. The first paper reviews several critiques of traditional argumentation theories and offers directions for new theories, and the remaining eight papers offer responses to the ideas and…

To present a detailed description of what school superintendents actually do, not what they perceive themselves doing or what they ought to do, this project utilized unstructured, nonparticipant observation of six superintendents on the job. Four trained observers recorded the administrators' activities throughout every minute of the workday for…

Eighteen conversations between patients and nurses or physicians were videotaped to examine patterns that the interactants followed to maintain dominant or recessive roles. Physicians/nurses were viewed as the dominant interactants because of their greater control in the hospital setting whereas patients were viewed as the recessive interactants…

The observational study examined the sign language and communication abilities of 10 nonspeaking, autistic and autisticlike children (6 to 14 years old) involved in simultaneous communication training. Video data were collected as each child interacted with his/her therapist and with an unfamiliar adult. Analyses of the children's and adults'…

Speech communicators need to return to applied research, developing theoretical statements about how groups might work better and testing the validity of those statements. Among the tasks that group communication researchers might take up are determining the range of applicability of generalizations concerning different kinds of groups, studying…

This paper examines the principles and concepts of several different processes and models of professional-client interaction in the initial face to face interview--Davies' approach, Silber's model, Shein's process consultation model, Havelock's change agent model, medical problem solving processes, and counseling processes. Conclusions drawn from…

A demonstration preschool program based on Piagetian principles and integrating handicapped children with their normal peers is described. Findings on the behavior styles of the children are cited based on the Coping Analysis Schedule for Educational Settings. It is explained that as groups, the non-handicapped and handicapped Ss exhibit similar…

When an interview is used as a research technique, the process of the dialogue between the experimenter and the subject is a part of the experimental conditions. The dialogue can be extensively structured, or it can be open-ended. Though the latter situation may provide more information about the subject's thought processes, there is a greater…

A TRANSCRIPTION WAS MADE OF A GROUP DISCUSSION CONDUCTED TO DEVELOP A SCALE FOR MAKING QUANTIFIED RATINGS OF THE INTERACTIONS OF STUDENT TEACHERS AND PUPILS AS OBSERVED FROM A FILM OF A 15-MINUTE LESSON PRESENTED BY THE STUDENT TEACHER. THE INTERACTIONS WERE TO BE JUDGED ON THE BASIS OF THE AMIDON-FLANDERS INTERACTION ANALYSIS SCALE, AND A NEW…

Techniques for using video tape for teacher observation are described. A form was devised for teachers to use as they observed replaying of tapes of their performance in an actual class situation. The form was divided into three charts. The first chart enabled the teachers to note teacher talk, student talk, and moments of silence or confusion.…

The implications of a social movement theory advanced by Jean-Paul Sartre in his "Critique of Dialectical Reason" is examined in this paper. The paper notes that unlike sociologists and rhetoricians who have stressed the psychology of movement adherents, the reasons for movement formation, or the movement's interaction with power agents,…

The purpose of this study was to observe and describe the teaching behavior and interaction patterns of four elementary school physical education teachers longitudinally. Each teacher was observed twice a day (AM and PM) for a period of 20 consecutive days, resulting in 40 observations per subject. The following conclusions were reached: (1)…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the proposition that subjects under stress will, in their behavioral interaction with significant persons, recapitulate the behaviors learned by the subject within the family constellation. The counseling interview was the model used to investigate the relationship between family learned behavior and…

This five-part document presents three approaches to research on instructional improvement, with the final two sections concentrating on problems and implications for diagnostic prescriptive instruction. Part 1 reviews comparative instructional effectiveness studies. Part 2 discusses the Trait-Treatment Interaction Approach (TTI) which is…