Children's use of humor in hospital settings and ways hospital personnel might encourage positive uses of humor are discussed in this paper. Three questions are raised: (1) How is humor viewed in hospitals treating children? (2) How can developmental psychology help us understand children's humor? (3) What implications does an understanding of…

A 12-category instrument was developed for describing verbal interaction among students working in small groups in the biology laboratory. Seventy-five student laboratory groups were tape recorded. Data were collected while the students worked on two different laboratory activities, and group laboratory reports were collected at the end of each…

The aim of this study was to develop an instructional model for use with Biological Sciences Curriculum Study single-topic films which included clear identification and use of the rationale and expected behavioral outcomes of these films. New guides were written for some of the films, and a procedure was developed for observing and recording…

A method of interaction analysis in which the individual student is the unit of analysis in classroom studies is needed to complement traditional studies treating the class as the unit. Such a method would add information concerning intra-class variation in teacher-pupil interaction patterns. Treatment of the studied are properly conceptualized as…

An attempt was made to ascertain what type of verbal interaction behavior manifested by a group given a problem in curriculum development affects the quality of the product. Thirty ad hoc groups, selected randomly, were given curriculum development tasks to solve. Curriculum Guide Form (CGF) and Bales' Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) were used…

The purpose of this research experiment was to investigate the effectiveness of one type of simulation (consisting of a series of anxiety-inducing motion picture vignettes, split-screen video tape recording, and a trained recall worker) in reducing anxiety and thereby increasing the subsequent classroom interaction of student teachers. A secondary…

This study tested Fiedler's contingency model of leadership effectiveness on 86 nursing students in a large midwestern hospital. Fourteen individuals representing the task oriented and relationship-oriented leadership styles and two levels of sociometric status were randomly designated as leaders for small groups. The groups worked on five…

The purpose of this document is to describe two process-oriented classroom observation scales and to report a research study which offers further support for the validity of these instruments. The two observation scales, developed by Harvey, et al., are (1) Teaching Rating Scale, devised specifically as a measure of classroom atmosphere, and (2)…

The purpose of the project was to develop and try out a model for the evaluation of vocational teacher education programs. An advisory council established an evaluation system utilizing four components: (1) existing situation, (2) resources available, (3) process evaluation, and (4) product evaluation. For the process evaluation component…

Reported is an observational analysis process termed "macroanalysis" which involves the analysis of interactive dialogue in chains or sequences of coded behavior rather than in terms of conventional matrices and ratios. All existing 3-, 4-, and 5-tally chains are extracted directly from an observer's coded tallies. This paper includes a…

This study describes efforts to create instructional materials cognitively appealing to students demonstrating aptitude for figurally, verbally, or symbolically oriented material. Subjects were given a battery of tests designed to measure their figural, semantic, and symbolic aptitudes. Subjects then studied a unit on network tracing in one of…

This package of minicourse materials on interaction analysis consists of a handbook, workbook, coordinator's manual, and audio tapes on which classroom episodes have been recorded. The minicourse lasts six weeks, during which time participants are given a brief orientation and spend the first three weeks on five lessons that involve reading…

Pollution of the general environment, which exposes an entire population group for an indeterminate period of time, certainly constitutes a problem in public health. Serious aid pollution episodes have resulted in increased mortality and a possible relationship between chronic exposure to a polluted atmosphere and certain diseases has been…

Classroom interaction data matrices obtained from a preservice training project in techniques of achieving divergent pupil responses were compared using a statistical procedure outlined by Darwin (1959). The procedure interprets interaction sequences as realizations of Markov chains. Contrary to results of an earlier study (Pena, 1972),…

The first three chapters of this booklet describe the utilization of observation as a measurement technique, the types of observation systems available, and the necessary components of an observation system. The second part focuses on the following four commonly used observation systems: 1) primary reading checklist, 2) student affective behavior…