This on-going qualitative multiple case study is examining K. Dabrowski's ideas concerning psychic overexcitability in gifted children, by describing the overexcitabilities exhibited by five young gifted children. The five children, ages 3 and 4, attend a private school for gifted children and were purposely selected to provide examples of the…

This paper addresses the personological aspects relative to male and female success in two subject areas (math and science) and addresses specific concerns in the area of mentoring. Personality factors operative for success in math and science are reviewed, and teachers are advised to encourage, support, and facilitate those personality traits…

Elements leading to resilience or non-resilience in 10 undergraduate students who had been diagnosed as having a learning disability (LD) were studied. Subjects were labeled as either "resilient" or "non-resilient" depending on their grade point average in their major field. Themes which emerged as common experiences of…

This series of studies focused on Bulgarian school effects on children's creative development. The studies were based on the premise that one of the most powerful ways in which a culture encourages or discourages creativity is the way in which teachers and the school reward or punish certain personality characteristics as they develop in children…

The relationship among teaching methods, student personality traits, and learning outcomes was investigated in this study involving 125 7th and 8th grade students who were being taught to think critically about public controversy. While background material was presented to all students uniformly, students were assigned to two different types of…

Volunteerism has existed for centuries, but formalized volunteer programs have come about only recently. Student volunteerism became popular during the 1960s and 1970s as colleges and universities encouraged community service through campus-based programs. This study examined college student volunteers (N=199) from four different campus volunteer…

The official recommendations of teacher education in Finland stress the personality growth of student teachers towards an active, highly educated, socially oriented, and humanistic personality. This is a study of three kinds of prospective teachers: nursery school teachers, elementary teachers, and subject teachers. The student teachers of the…

The authoritarian-aggression attitudes of graduate education students were studied. Authoritarian-aggression is defined as the tendency to look for, condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional behavior. It was hypothesized that no significant differences in authoritarian-aggression attitudes exist between graduate students who…

This study sought to describe the personality characteristics of self-directed continuing learners, develop an instrument to identify such learners, and conduct empirical investigations to validate the instrument. Results suggest the instrument is a valid tool for identifying self-directed continuing learners when used in its entirety. (Author/CT)

Mathematically gifted boys (N=77) and girls (N=62) completed a mathematics reasoning test, a verbal reasoning test, a measure of spatial ability, and a personality test. Findings indicated that boys not only have higher mathematical reasoning ability than girls, but also that this ability is the single best predictor of their mathematical…

The prevalence of 4 of 16 personality styles found in two dental school first-year classes is compared with personality styles found among practicing dentists, and the implications for dental program organization and curriculum are discussed. (MSE)

What causes a student to participate in a survey? This paper looks at survey response across multiple surveys to understand who the hard-core survey responders and non-responders are. Students at a selective liberal arts college were administered four different surveys throughout the 2002-2003 academic year, and we use the number of surveys…

Participants in a campus demonstration were compared with nonparticipants on personality characteristics as measured by the Personal Orientation Inventory. Campus demonstrators possessed more of the personality characteristics that are congruous with the purposes of higher education than did the nondemonstrators. (Author)

Compared special education and regular education college students to identify teacher traits needed to deal with special needs students in the regular classroom. Results showed special education majors have stronger affiliation needs and regular education majors have higher achievement needs. Suggests characteristics needed by teachers dealing…

Discusses a recent conceptualization of argumentativeness. Reports on an investigation of characteristics of argumentative students, which included variables such as birth order, family size, high school training, college grade point average, etc. Supports the assumption that argumentativeness is a desirable communication trait and considers…