Background information on the history and use of quality circles is provided in this paper, along with a discussion of the applicability of this management technique to the community college setting. First, introductory material is presented on the development of the approach in the early 1950s, its widespread use in the industrial and business…

The problems in this book are intended mainly for students in junior high school and junior secondary classes, but many will interest students at higher levels. Most of the problems fit quite easily into the regular curriculum, and could be used by both teachers and parents. The book has 11 chapters, all but one of which contain problems and their…

Before a course to improve basic reasoning skills can be intelligently designed, it will be necessary to determine the exact nature of those skills. Research indicates that: (1) reasoning skills are highly specific, not generalized; (2) a large number of different reasoning skills exist; (3) many reasoning skills are language dependent and widely…

This article focuses on interpersonal problem solving as a way of enhancing the social competence of young children. While many children acquire strategies for interacting positively with others and need no specific intervention, some children have difficulty in acquiring or displaying successful interpersonal problem solving skills. When children…

Presented are abstracts and abstractors' analyses of four studies dealing with cognitive development, four studies dealing with attitudes, and two studies dealing with problem-solving. The cognitive development studies are: "College Chemistry and Piaget: The Relationship of Aptitude and Achievement Measures" (David Bender and Louis…

This document is designed to assist teachers in helping students in further development of problem-solving skills. It consists of: a statement of purpose; an introduction (noting the place of problem-solving in junior high school mathematics curricula); a definition of problem-solving; a four-stage general framework for solving problems (which…

Part I of this curriculum guide outlines six workshop sessions. The instructional materials included were designed to support single parents as they identify and confront problems with which they and their children must cope. Some of the topics addressed are the need to help single parents begin to think of and see themselves as individuals as…

In the history of small group studies (in the field of communication theory and research), two factors contributed to the changes that led to Ernest Bormann publishing in 1970 his work questioning the value of the knowledge being reported and the appropriateness of the methods by which it was being generated. First, prior to 1965, a limited amount…

The topic of teaching troubleshooting is examined as an example of the teaching of cognitive strategies for technical problem solving. The traditional behavioral approach to teaching troubleshooting has essentially been algorithmic. Recent cognitive research suggests an approach founded first on task analysis and characterized by: (1) analysis of…

Tests of spatial ability that were designed to minimize the effects of sociocultural expectations on performance were administered to adults of both sexes. The tests examined spatial problem-solving, spatial memory, and psychomotor spatial performance, as measured by three "throwing tasks." Thirty-four male and 34 female university…

This study examined the influence of age, vocabulary knowledge, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES) on the geometric analogy performance of 4- to 6-year-olds. Subjects were 108 children between the ages of 48 and 83 months. Information on the age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status of each subject was obtained prior to data…

Thinking skills and performance skills are compatible, and actors and directors should learn them both. If there are to be advances in performing arts there must be a clearer understanding of the processes of thinking and the practices of performing. Efforts to define thinking skills have tended to categorize the skills into four camps: critical…

Action Research begins by identifying goals as perceived in the community; input is sought in neighborhood hearings or by running a series in the local newspaper and inviting response. Once a research group is organized, Action Research continues as a five-stage flexible study plan for practitioner improvement involving turning goals into…

Using an innovative bargaining model, a Chicago-area (Illinois) school district negotiated a teacher contract in under 30 days in an atmosphere of mutual trust. Central to sociologist Irving Goldaber's "win-win bargaining" model are (1) a schedule and a set of values agreed to by both parties and (2) a neutral facilitator. After adopting…

As a demonstration of the application of heuristic devices to decision-theoretical techniques, an interactive computer program known as MAUD (Multiattribute Utility Decomposition) has been designed to support decision or choice problems that can be decomposed into component factors, or to act as a tool for investigating the microstructure of a…