The hypothesis considered is that external evaluation of learning that a student may do for its intrinsic value may lessen the student's existing interest. Instructional movies were presented to students; in some cases students were told that they would (or in some cases, might) be tested on the contents, and in others they were not told this. The…

Academic performance appears to be influenced by the combined effects of at least seven important variables: 1) inherited capacity to learn, 2) learning experiences, 3) external resources, 4) attitude toward teachers, 5) perceptions of teacher expectations and values, 6) perceptions of the future utility of schooling, and 7) self-concept of…

Direct observation of a child's motor performance by a parent was hypothesized to exert an effect on motor behavior. The presence of a parent observer during practice was hypothesized to exert a depressing effect on learning and a facilitating effect on performance when parent observer was introduced later in practice. Male and female children age…

Incentive, practice, instruction, and feedback were manipulated in a series of four 2 x 2 factorial studies, with Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets and graduate students in education, to determine the individual and combined effects of these variables on learner performance (both speed and accuracy) of an aircraft comprehension task.…

In recent times there has been undue emphasis placed on the utilitarian byproducts of language study: the kinds of positions open for language majors, the practical purposes to which languages may be put, and job openings in the areas of translation, diplomacy, and commerce. These motives for the study of a language are commendable, but they do…

The student sought to identify positive factors which might be used to increase the performance levels of students in vocational classes and to investigate the relationship between motivational characteristics (intrinsic and extrinsic) and individual performance. Subjects included students in typing and shorthand classes and their two instructors.…

Although there is no one best way to teach writing, the creation of a learning climate in which students have the least possible chance for failure will facilitate the learning process. Factors influencing success include student interest in the subject, specifically understood objectives and criteria, genuineness of the teacher, progression from…

Although educators have for a long time recognized that learning from what one reads involves more than just cognitive skills, little attention has been given to techniques for developing affective readiness for reading activities. Teachers have a responsibility to model affective readiness whenever the opportunity presents itself, as well as to…

The question of whether reading methods interact differentially with student sequencing abilities was investigated. One hundred and thirty-one children from three schools in Palo Alto, California, were given reading instruction using a linguistic approach (Palo Alto Reading Program), and 115 children from three Palo Alto schools used a whole-word…

The studies described in this report were concerned with the effect of active student behaviors, such as note-taking, listening, verbal responding, and test-taking, and the effect of individual differences on the transformation, storage, and retrieval of information. The roles of such individual characteristics as personality, background, and…

The purpose of this study was to identify the differences between students who profit from compensatory education programs and those who do not. The study looked at family systems, family interactions, and individual children's behavior from a point of view that subsumes cognitive and communicational style variables which differ from the framework…

In a Behavior Analysis classroom the first step is to define instructional objectives for academic or social skills. The second step is to determine how much the child already knows about what is to be taught. An Entry Behavior Inventory and diagnostic tests help teachers decide where each child needs to begin working in the sequence leading to…

The purpose of this study was to develop a semantic differential scale based on achievement motivation concepts by which grade point averages could be predicted. A scale was constructed and administered to 944 freshmen at Northeastern State College in Fall 1967. Two approaches were used. One was to combine semantic differential scale scores…

This research on motivation has been focused on (a) development of a measure of motivation of young children to achieve in school, a measure consonant with a five-faceted theory of constituents of motivation, and (b) a curriculum for teaching motivation to preschool children, also grounded in the theory. The resulting measure, Jumpgookies, is an…

The effects of fixed-ratio and variable-ratio reinforcement classroom reading performance was investigated. Subjects were 50 boys and 50 girls from four grade-2 classrooms of one elementary school. The subjects were divided into three reading levels, above-average, average, and below-average, and were randomly assigned to (1) a no-reinforcement…