A study examined the perceptions of black and white voters in the 1988 Southern Regional presidential primary (labeled "Super Tuesday") to determine whether or not discernible racial differences exist in the use and impact of political information. Data were gathered by trained interviewers from 678 randomly selected primary-aware…

Some parents fear that what their children learn in school theatre programs departs from family values. School theatre proponents have opened a Pandora's box by promoting theatre's potential to teach, rather than focusing solely on its aesthetic goals. Both sides in the theatre censorship controversy share the misperception that theatre causes…

The University of Washington Student Teacher Assessment System has identified 11 skills as necessary for effective teaching. This study examined the relative importance of these skills by surveying 234 elementary/secondary teachers, principals, and student teacher supervisors. The respondents were asked to group the most and the least important of…

A study was conducted to answer several research questions involving: (1) decision models used by teachers; (2) nature of preactive and interactive decisions made by teachers; (3) what governs teachers' decisions; (4) interaction between teachers' decision making and the need to maintain activity flow; (5) how teachers establish a "learning…

Thirty classroom teachers, 19 reading teachers, 33 students, and 13 supervisors were interviewed in a study to gather information concerning the degree of congruence that exists in the instruction provided during core curriculum reading instruction and compensatory reading instruction. The interviews consisted of open-ended questions that…

The Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test (BG), a test of visual-motor integration, is a screening device used to investigate school-related factors that may produce poor academic achievement and learning disabilities. Because BG test stimuli are not obviously related to classroom content, and because BG scores are frequently offered as evidence of…

A college-level course in business literature is an ideal place to raise and discuss ethical issues. To be successful, a teacher of this course must engage student interest, help the students articulate and understand their own ethical attitudes, clarify the stance and artistry of the author, and refine student responses to ethical questions. When…

Focusing on reader response in the classroom, the works collected in this book represent the results of a five-week summer institute in which 25 middle school, high school, and college teachers studied the principles and applications of literature instruction. The following essays are included: an introduction by G. Garber; "An Overview of the…

Poetry of the romantic age is often uninviting to students, leaving them puzzled because they do not sense the connections between the poetry and themselves. Yet, much romantic poetry can be enjoyed and comprehended if approached in terms of some personal, reflective, and connective readings. Wordsworth and Whitman are often avoided because they…

A study of feedback in conversational question-response exchanges focused on the questioner's feedback to the respondent. It examined three types of "followup" moves: the ordinary type revealing the questioner's attitude to the response and closing the exchange; the type signaling the questioner's reaction to the response and inviting…

Although many researchers conclude that education is a profession marked by high levels of stress or experience of "burnout," this paper contends that educators are more adaptable and hence less stressed than the literature would indicate. The paper surveys literature on educator stress, presents studies indicating low educator stress, and…

The Flesch readability index yields meaningful information about the responses of readers to texts. Because the formula is so simple, a group of English teachers wrote a program in BASIC that would count some obvious surface features of a text and calculate Flesch scores. Among the programing problems encountered were counting words (taking into…

The spontaneous use of imaging and its relationships to verbal recall and literary analysis were investigated in a study in which 72 college students read a literary text under one of three sets of instructions that manipulated processing depth in an externally valid fashion. Imagery reports and free verbal recalls of the story were collected…

This study examined the nature of teacher layoffs and their effects on the role enactment and coping strategies of teachers. Fourteen high school teachers, who were employed in a large urban school district plagued by declining enrollment, were interviewed. Each teacher had been "riffed" (reduction in force) and recalled at least once in the…

Many psychological and physiological disorders may have some etiology in an unconstructive response to anger. Still others may be exacerbated by repressed or suppressed anger. Anger is often a problem for clients seeking therapy, yet psychologists have little research upon which to develop a viable therapeutic approach. While skills in…