A series of studies was conducted to investigate the nature of children's goals and the role of goals in children's competence in peer relations. First, a conceptual framework was devised which consisted of eight goal types reflecting social-interpersonal and task-related achievement aspects of game playing: task mastery, approach-oriented…

Primary aim: to test Edelstein, Keller, and Wahlen's model of sequential operations in perspective taking on 93 children in the third grade and 69 children in kindergarten, who were tested again when in the first grade. Secondary aim: to examine the relationship between social experience and perspective taking. (Author/BN)

Considers four questions related to humorous activity: What events evoke laughtor and smiling in classrooms and do these events change as children grow older? Are there differences in frequency and type of events produced and appreciated? How do teachers and peers react to humorous events? and What are the other behavior patterns of children who…

Results question the validity of Cummins's threshold hypothesis and suggest that degree of bilingualism is related to variability in cognitive measures only before a certain threshold of proficiency in the second language is attained. A cause-effect model in which degree of bilingualism appears as the causal factor affecting children's cognitive…

Analyzed data from low-income students (480 males, 466 females) to explore differences between those who want to have children and those who don't. Found high school women who don't want children had higher occupational and educational aspirations. The reverse was true for males who didn't want children. (BH)

Chinese, Japanese, and American children at grades 1 and 5 were given a battery of 10 cognitive tasks and tests of achievement in reading and mathematics. Goals were to determine (1) possible differences in cognitive abilities and (2) the possible differential relation of scores on cognitive tasks to reading by children of the three cultures.…

Longitudinally examines the stability of the association between maternal behavior and preschool children's cognitive abilities. Outcome measures included both school readiness (assessed at ages five and six) and achievement on mathematics and vocabulary subtests of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills at grade six. (Author/RH)

This study examined the association between amount of time spent watching television and perceptions of self concept among 102 Black children ranging in age from 7 to 13. A major finding was that television viewing was related positively to the self concepts of girls and unrelated to boys' self concepts. (Author/MBR)

Describes a Canadian study attempting to relate the motivating power of interest to children's writing performance by supplementing background knowledge with topic relevant information. Reports that children with tutorial support on high interest subjects performed no better than others. Concludes that the motivational power of interesting topics…

Uses fables to study the moral orientation used in problem solving by 54 first, second, and fifth grade children. The following findings are reported: (1) all adopted a "care" orientation; (2) only fifth grade boys used solutions involving tricks; and (3) the ability to explain the logic of solutions was related to abstract reasoning…

Education researchers and policymakers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data…

An influential proposal about aquiring mathematical knowledge is that it entails linking instruction-based concepts to intuitions derived from informal activities. In the case of non-positive numbers, informal knowledge is unlikely to emanate from observing physical objects, because non-positive objects or sets of objects do not exist. However, it…

This report investigates the effectiveness of a metacognitive strategy in reducing anger behavior and/or aggressive acts in elementary and secondary-aged students placed in special education classes. Three separate studies were conducted with three elementary, three middle, and three high school students who were placed in special education…

This study evaluated the generally recommended concrete-to-abstract hierarchy for presenting a new skill, with three students with learning disabilities in grades 1, 2, and 4. The three subjects enrolled in the Multidisciplinary Diagnostic and Training Program's classroom housed on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. Following…

This study examined the aggressive behaviors of children through peer ratings to teacher ratings of problem behaviors and social skills and peer ratings of friendship. Peer data are valid measures and may be more accurate than teacher or self measures because peers are more likely to be present when aggression occurs. This study examines a peer…