Presents a study to determine, via scalogram analysis, whether there was a constant order in which children mastered six skills: understanding chance events, detecting incongruous causal relations, completing "because" statements, displaying a skeptical attitude, and explaining remote and familiar objects. Data were analyzed for 84…

Typical prevailing task analysis really is skill analysis whose product is a set of generic tasks considered to exhaust or sufficiently sample a skill domain. This approach yields tasks as the base entities of analysis; any understanding of interrelations of structures in the skill architecture in consequence must occur--if at all--above the level…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between three tests which measured specific components of fencing skill and foil fencing success as determined by criterion measures derived from a round-robin tournament. The subjects were 59 women enrolled in four beginning fencing classes taught by the same instructor at the…

The manual was designed to help vocational education curriculum experts learn procedures for constructing task inventories and for analyzing occupational performance. The manual opens with definitions of a task inventory and other terms, and an overview of the procedure. The first six steps involve the overall construction of an initial task…

Research on the effects of numerical control (NC) machining on the skills of machinists presents mixed results. Interviews with a small group of machinists experienced in both conventional and NC matching suggest seven major factors that affect whether NC automation changes the overall skill level. The deskilling hypothesis is not supported by…

The authors describe a method for assessing job task performance without bias. The method is applicable to both product and procedure evaluation and features use of checklists. They discuss checklist validation, pilot testing, and revision. (CH)

Examined the counselor response skill measured by the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory. Inventories completed by 457 paraprofessional counselors from five suicide and crisis intervention services were factor-analyzed to yield their simple structure. Results suggest that the instrument is multifactorial, with four component factors…

Discusses a model based on a specific set of assumptions about causality and effectiveness in interactional groups. Discusses personal qualities of group facilitators and proposes five major functions and seven skill clusters central to effective group facilitation. (Author/BH)

Female fast pitch softball batters served in an examination of the dynamic characteristics of the bat during the swing through the use of three-dimensional cinematographic analysis techniques. These results were compared with those from previous studies of baseball batting. Findings are listed. (Author/DF)

Suggests that children's writing is an excellent source of pertinent information about spelling and word recognition skills and analyzes one child's writing to demonstrate how an analysis of misspellings might proceed and how information obtained might be used to direct future instruction. (Author/RB)

Counselors today have a variety of choices when working with clients. They are challenged to select the most timely and cost effective ways to work with clients. SkillScan Online is a self-directed process that enables clients to assess skills and competencies, explore career options, and plan skill development activities to keep pace with the…

Article presents a scheme that provides a common framework for viewing task analysis. (Author)

Profile training should be designed to develop the four basic interaction skills of situation analysis, interaction objective establishment, behavior planning, and behavior monitoring. (KP)

Summarizes a doctoral thesis that validated a Gagnian learning hierarchy and showed that graphical skills were more quickly learned the greater the guidance that was given, but that there was no difference in retention and transfer between guided and discovery learning of these skills. (AL)

This study was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ed.D. degree at Teachers College, Columbia University.