Lectures have a place in educational history and even a place in today's classroom, but students must be exposed to more than one style of teaching. After 20 minutes of listening to a lecture, most students reach a saturation point. To realize their maximum potential, students must do more than just listen in the classroom. They must engage in…

A study examined variation in code choice in the same speakers in two contrasting situations--interorganizational and intraorganizational bargaining. Naturalistic interactions between teams of teacher's union bargaining agents, role-playing teachers, and school board members in the two settings were coded, using measures of structural and lexical…

Noting that role playing and writing as prereading activities have the potential to improve reading comprehension, a study tested the efficacy of a role playing method for improving reading comprehension. Students in three college developmental reading classes were asked to assume the role of author of a selection that they were about to read and…

Two studies are presented which investigate the influence of various toy structures on the frequency of individual fantasy play forms in 3- to 6-year-old children. In the first study, the effects of high-realistic/high-complexity and low-realistic/low-complexity toy structures were compared. There were significant main effects for the factor toy…

A study examined the effect of assigned social decision rule (whether a jury is required to give a unanimous or less than unanimous verdict) on the process and product of mock jury deliberations. Subjects, 360 students from an eastern university, were randomly assigned to six-member juries under three decision rule conditions: (1) unanimity, (2)…

As a means of dramatizing the interrelationships that determine the climate of a school, a simulation experience was created for participants in this workshop on school climate improvement. A discussion of the intent of the experience includes descriptions of "good" and "poor" school environments and their impact on the school community.…

This paper reports the preliminary results of an investigation of the effects of (1) a schoolwide discipline plan and (2) role playing, modeling, and video utilization upon the self concept of students in grades 3-6 and educable mentally handicapped students. The Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale was used to assess the effectiveness of a…

The situation card used in the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service (ACTFL/ETS) Oral Proficiency Interview provides a kind of linguistic-topographical map of the student's foreign language ability by measuring what the student of business Spanish is able or unable to do in business situations in that…

The concept and intercultural application of a "common sense" approach to communication deserves close scrutiny. In an intercultural context, "common sense" should be renamed "cultural perception." In fact, there is nothing that can universally transcend culture and be called "common sense.""Common…

Recently, emphasis has been placed on curriculum implementation of character development. The elementary school counselor can function as a curriculum consultant by providing a delivery system for affective goals and objectives in the curriculum. Elementary counselors can help administrators and teachers to define learning problems and establish…

Some older adults experience difficulty in decentering their own viewpoint on tasks requiring spatial and communicative role-taking. To examine the social perspective-taking skills of older adults and the kinds of strategies older people would suggest to solve social dilemmas, adults were interviewed about their typical interpersonal problems. A…

Forty nonclinical psychology graduate students participated in brief small-group interchanges designed as psychotherapy analogues. The interaction was rated by trained judges, and the "clients" in the simulations also rated "therapist" empathy. The most powerful predictor of client-rated empathy was gender, with women receiving higher empathy…

Mothers' ability to decode the emotional expressions of their male and female children was compared to the decoding ability of non-mothers. Happiness, sadness, fear and anger were induced in children in situations that varied in terms of spontaneous and role-played encoding modes. It was hypothesized that mothers would be more accurate decoders of…

An intense preoccupation with death is evident in the Mexican culture's pre-Columbian art, myths, and religion. This preoccupation is still present in the urban Mexican American. A death in a Mexican family causes a set of emotions and events quite different from those seen in an Anglo family. The Mexican reaction to death is such that if the full…

This paper presents materials from a workshop on using role playing in science education. It contains the basics of role play therapy including the purposes of the strategy, establishing a classroom climate for role play, guidelines for interaction in role play, preparation for role play and possible focuses of a role playing session, step-by-step…