A teacher educator describes his teaching experience in China and his finding that the Western behaviorist, alphabetic, linear mode of thinking has been widely adopted in education in that traditionally ideographic culture. The contrasting relationships of language, thought and behavior in the American and Chinese cultures is examined, and it is…

Beginning with the fall 1983 semester, a set of behavioristic principles was incorporated into the classroom management techniques used in the high school completion and general educational development (GED) programs offered at the South Dade Adult Education Center in Homestead, Florida. A study examined the effectiveness of these principles in…

To be maximally effective in solving problems, researchers must place their methodological and theoretical models of science within social and political contexts. They must become aware of biases and assumptions and move toward a more valid perception of social realities. Psychologists must view women in the situational context within which…

Discussion of performance appraisal in nonprofit organizations and the difficulties involved in obtaining accurate job feedback examines four types of appraisal: behavioralism; minimal model; heuristic knowledge; and tacit information from in-house experimentation. Conclusions are drawn about the usefulness of these approaches and a suggestion for…

This study revised the Teacher Beliefs Survey (S. Wooley and A. Wooley, 1999; TBS), an instrument to assess teachers beliefs related to constructivist and behaviorist theories of learning, and then studied the validity of the revised TBS. Drawing on a literature review, researchers added items for the existing constructs of the TBS and added a new…

Time spent on disciplining children in the classroom is time taken away from achieving the objectives of instruction. The classroom teacher needs to have appropriate guidelines to use in teaching as well as specific workable procedures which help students to achieve. This paper discusses various methods of classroom discipline. The paper first…

The demise of the behaviorist paradigm and the rise of the social, cognitive, and interactionist models of second language acquisition (SLA) have led to the understanding that constructivist mechanisms are part of the process. Given the variety of empirical findings and understandings research in the field has yielded, this study attempts to offer…

Presents a perspective on behaviorism in schools and teacher education, then focuses on the beliefs and effectiveness of constructivism. Discusses information literacy and transferable library skills as the results of individual, active learning and curriculum-integrated library instruction. Provides resources to further explore constructivism and…

Agrees with Brian Rowan that ideas about teaching and learning have powerful implications for many aspects of school administration and that professional preparation must centrally engage these ideas. Presents three complementary themes from contemporary research that raise additional considerations and point in other directions: the sociocultural…

Interviews with 11 policymakers, 49 teachers, and 125 adult learners in Alberta explored their socioeconomic characteristics and political culture. Results showed the predominance of the therapeutic model, in which social problems are considered pathologies or deficits and treatment involves adapting learners to the economic requirements of…

Reviews "Soviet Studies in Mathematics Education: Volume 2. Types of Generalization in Instruction" (V. V. Davydov, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1990), which is useful for educational researchers because its major theory of dialectical materialism offers a view of knowledge with a significant role for activities that…

Critiques the discourse of behaviorism, uncovering underlying racial assumptions within the discourse and the field of special education. Describes the impact of this discourse and its practices on the programs that focus solely on student behavior and in which surveillance and regulation dominate the school lives of minority students. Discusses…

Rooted in behavioral theory, particularly the radical or selectivist behaviorism of B.F. Skinner (1953, 1954, 1966, 1968, 1974), the direct instruction (DI) approach to teaching is now well into its third decade of influencing curriculum, instruction, and research. It is also in its third decade of controversy. Our purpose is to present the DI…

This document contains two articles that develop an argument for how schools must change to meet the demands of democracy; they also present a focused agenda for action. In the first article, "Reframing the School Reform Agenda: Developing Capacity for School Transformation," Linda Darling-Hammond describes how two different paradigms of teaching…

A needs assessment of the Grumman E-Beam Systems Group identified the requirement for additional skill mastery for the engineers who assemble, integrate, and maintain devices used to manufacture integrated circuits. Further analysis of the tasks involved led to the decision to develop interactive videodisc, computer-based job aids to enable…