This article is an abstract of the doctoral dissertation selected by NASPA as the 1977 Dissertation of the Year. It concerns the identification of student activities related to developmental growth. This identification may eventually help design a campus milieu that will maximize growth. (Author)

Students were classified as formal or concrete-operational using a battery of Piagetian tasks, a biology content examination, and a nonscience content examination. Based on the results it was concluded that Piagetian tasks are relatively content-free and can serve as realistic indicators of concrete and formal thinking abilities. (MLH)

Assessed J. F. Wohlwill's notion of way-stations in development by investigating developmental interdependencies among children's solutions to three proportionality tasks: a balance beam task, a probability judgment, and a juice-mixing task. (SKC)

Argues that Susan Sugarman's article in this issue contains some valid criticism of assumptions in developmental psychology, but that some of her conclusions regarding other assumptions need to be questioned. Suggests that many problems raised by Sugarman would disappear if developmental psychologists concentrated on children's early achievements…

Summarizes reliability and validity studies reported about the Student Developmental Task Inventory, second edition (SDTI-2), an objective assessment instrument based on Chickering's theory of psychosocial development described in Education and Identity. Outlines other findings related to differences in psychosocial development. (Author/ABB)

Career development of creatively gifted adults consists of three tasks: (1) dealing with career decision problems, (2) finding training and support, and (3) maintaining productivity. Counselors can help clients face these tasks by emphasizing values in decision making, keeping abreast of innovations, and identifying and treating productivity…

Research results reported in this special issue show that egocentricity and staging, both central ideas in the Piaget-Kohlberg account of human development, are myths. The appearance of egocentricity and staging can be accounted for by a subtle combination of ethnocentricity and the effects of inappropriate methodologies. (RM)

Tells how undergraduate student volunteers tested children, ages 3 to 10 years old, to reveal their development in language, conservation of volume and weight, and moral judgment. These videotaped sessions were then used in class to illustrate important concepts. (JDH)

Tests the claim to comprehensiveness of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives by analyzing educational objectives of some freshmen orientation programs and those connected with human developmental tasks. It is concluded that the taxonomy should be enlarged with a fourth domain: actual induction into tasks for which students are being…

Using census data from the nineteenth century and 1960, the authors compare the timing of five points in the life cycle in which the transition to adulthood is generally demarcated. Historical trends are discussed. (NS)

This report constitutes one of the first activities of the Forum on Adolescence, a cross-cutting activity of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of the National Academies. Established under the auspices of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, the forum's overarching mission is to synthesize, analyze, and evaluate…

Some of the procedures for developing and validating learning sequences or learning hierarchies are explored. For each of these procedures, references are provided that can be used for additional study or clarification of the procedures. (Author)

Study results suggest that if counselors were aware of home expectations early in child's school career, they could recognize trouble signals and attempt to alter parental expectations which are unreal. (CJ)

Educators are concerned with the ecology of students," that is, they are concerned with understanding the nature of the interaction between a developing human being and his physical, social and emotional environment. Using Erikson and Maslow frameworks, the ecological system represented by the elementary school classroom is examined. (Author/CG)

Discusses five developmental tasks encountered by college students during late adolescence and early adulthood: (1) shift in relationship with parents; (2) resolution of personal sexual identity; (3) creation of value system; (4) development of capacity for intimacy; and (5) choice of life's work. (Author)