Following Bennis and Shepard's work, groups are thought to become preoccupied with problems of gaining reassurance about six basic human tasks in turn. One can show that these problems, called focal problems, have two forms, inclusive and narrowed, and that progressing through the problems requires three subphases. (Author/ABL)

In the post-World War II era, efforts to improve the accessibility and quality of higher education rose to prominence in US educational debates and policymaking. In retrospect, a confluence of factors helped to forge this growing social consensus about the need to create educational opportunity and to diversify the nation's colleges and…

This study examines the Chicana/o student movement in Southern California colleges from 1967 to 1973. Using oral histories, movement newspapers, university archives, and government documents, I argue that Chicana/o student activists centered their organizational identities, activities, and goals on servicing the Mexican American community. Given…

This article first examines why the homeschooling movement in the USA emerged in the 1970s, noting the impact of political radicalism both right and left, feminism, suburbanization, and public school bureaucratization and secularization. It then describes how the movement, constituted of left- and right-wing elements, collaborated in the early…

The literature on the use of problem-based learning in K-12 settings has traditionally focused on gifted and average students. However, mainstreaming is placing increasing numbers of students with special needs in general education classrooms. This case study examined how members of a small group in a mainstreamed seventh grade science class…

Although estimations typically possess correct answers, these answers may be difficult to demonstrate to others. However, providing external information may increase their demonstrability. In this experiment, individuals (N = 60) and 6-person groups (N = 360) generated estimations with or without frames of reference. We hypothesized that…

A brief version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association (San Francisco, September 1968).

Cheating, operationally defined as the falsification of scores on a word construction task, was found, as predicted, to be influenced by achievement anxiety and knowledge of the performance of a peer reference group in 111 high school subjects (Ss). However, achievement anxiety was positively correlated with cheating only when knowledge of…

Much of the material presented here derives from a study of the termination phase of group development undertaken to test the validity of a portion of a stages model developed by Garland, Kolodny, and Jones (1965). This model for stages of group development postulates five stages of group life. (Author)

Examined the relationships between interpersonal trust and elements of influence in an ambiguous small-group setting (N=36). Results indicated that trusting another's expertise and being trusted for expertise are the salient variables for having influence in this kind of group setting. (LLL)

For a workshop to be successful, it must have characteristics such as organization, acceptable pace, well-defined objectives, and adequate facilities. Trainers court disaster if these are not present. Includes symptoms of dysfunctional behavior by participants, causes of this behavior, and strategies to deal with it. (JOW)

Looks at the problems of using collaborative learning with adults and offers suggestions for dealing with problems that arise. (JOW)