This article reports on a case study of a women's prayer and Bible study group that has met for over forty years. The report focuses on factors contributing to the group's longevity and vitality over time, how it changed over the years, and its impact on the lives of the women who participated in it. It also addresses how this long-term group…

This paper describes the development of augmented group awareness tools that take mutual user ratings of their online discussion contributions as input, aggregate these data, and visually feed these data back to the members in real time, thereby informing participants about how the group as a whole perceives their contributions. A specific group…

This book is designed to provide practical guidance to persons acting as facilitators of community and decision-making groups. Examples, scenarios, real situations, and (where appropriate) research results are incorporated to illustrate all major points. In the introductory section, facilitation is discussed in a problem-solving and…

Relates a study designed to measure the extent to which trust-destroying communication affects verbal fluency of members in small group discussions. (MH)

Group structure is one of the important mediators between individual input and group output. The present study examines the effect of group structure on the following dependent variables: (1) change in the group member's evaluation of items evaluated before group interaction, (2) change in his subjective evaluation model as a consequence of group…

The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility of group meetings of Head Start mothers that are focused on understanding of one's self and of others. A Parent Awareness Program was developed for use with two groups of Head Start mothers over a 27-week and a 17-week period, respectively. Specific objectives were that mothers would (1)…

SYNCON is a tool to examine future options; it is a process that begins with small groups, merges to larger composite groups, and finally one total group so that all members of a group can contribute towards the solution of a complex problem. (Author)

Describes a general approach to the analysis of teaching in small-group contexts; guidelines are presented in a check list. (Author)

Reasons for using small peer group interaction and ways of utilizing student assistance in teaching about human sexuality are described. (Author)

This article, based on the authors' work in South Yorkshire, examines some of the attitudes and dynamics within a mother's group and participants' reactions to group leaders who are child specialists. Some guidelines are presented on developing a parent education group for mothers of young children. (SJL)

Examined participation by (N=9) older adults in a literary discussion group. Results indicated that the impetus for elderly attendance was to learn. Discussed the effect of program design and location, group dynamics, and various facilitation techniques. (RC)

Instructors and trainers are increasingly using online education and technology-mediated learning (TML) to supplement or replace traditional approaches to classroom teaching. Because mandatory involvement requirements may not intrinsically motivate learners to achieve high quality learning, social factors with commitment, such as identification…

These proceedings contain 90 papers that address important human factors in distance education from several perspectives, provide insights into how those factors contribute to successful outcomes, and describe practical methods for implementing similar approaches in other settings. They include "Is Your E-Everything Accessible to…

A leader's legitimacy through election or appointment has been found to create differing relationships with followers, resulting generally from greater expectations for an elected leader. To compare the authority and influence of elected and appointed leaders, 140 students were recruited to participate in research on "urban planning."…

This study focused on the role played by two factors--interpersonal attractiveness of group members and pattern of distribution of task-relevant information--in forming an influence base in task-oriented discussion groups. For purposes of the study, members of discussion groups who were confederates in the study were assigned attitudinal…