Behavioral intentions of 100 families regarding out-of-home placement for their child or early adolescent with severe handicaps were tracked 4 times over 6 years with the Placement Tendency Index, to assess the dynamics of family behavioral change. The index had long-term modest predictive capacity but increased predictive utility over shorter…

Risk factors for serious suicidal behavior among older adults were examined in a case control study of adults aged 55 and older who died by suicide or made suicide attempts and who were compared with randomly selected comparison subjects. Multivariate analyses suggested that mood disorders were the most significant risk factor for suicidal…

Despite signs of increasing agreement among mental health professionals, controversy continues over developmental, diagnostic, and intervention issues surrounding childhood depression. This introductory text is written for practitioners as well as for advanced undergraduates or graduate students who are preparing to become psychologists, social…

The purpose of this study was to determine if an elective environmental education course offered to students in Newfoundland and Labrador high schools (Canada) changed student attitudes towards the environment. Of 220 students surveyed for the study, 21 took the Environmental Science course. A questionnaire was used to survey four attitude…

A study examined how the SPEAK (Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit) Test is perceived by both International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) and instructors at a major midwestern university where it is used as a screening instrument for hiring ITAs. Subjects, 24 ITAs from the social sciences and 24 ITAs from the math-based sciences who took the…

An ongoing distance learning project at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) in Greeley is described. When the project, the Western Institute for Distance Education (WIDE), is complete, the system will provide access to education courses so that 98% of the state's population will be within 60 miles of a site. At present there are three…

Recognizing that the classroom of the 1990s will be more participatory and interactive, this study compared career ladder and preservice teachers who have stronger interactive qualities with other educators on 15 affective variables of the Canfield Learning Styles Inventory. The study sought to determine which affective variables differed…

Administrator development programs are multiplying, yet little is known of their effects. If instruction is meant to produce cognitive, affective, and psychomotor changes in participants, inservice programs should duplicate that process--and, by extension, improve schools. Two instruments in each of four areas (cognitive , affective, psychomotor,…

This report evaluated the fourth year of operation (1985-1986) of the Chapter 2 All-Day Kindergarten Program. The goals of this program were that the children attending show growth in reading readiness, acquisition of number concepts, and affective development. Principal findings note that (1) attendance rates were higher than citywide…

The six papers in this set of symposium materials all deal with the development and measurement of self-concept in various groups of students. The first paper (by Douglas Muller) addresses the lack of well-defined procedures for assessing self-concept and suggests that such a measure should be based on standardized procedures such as the…

Shyness is a prevalent problem among grade school children, and several instruments for measuring shyness are being developed. Some of these assessment instruments include the Shyness Line, the Shyness Problem Line, and the Shyness Self Report, questionnaires focusing on children's feelings, thoughts and behaviors related to shyness. These…

The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of rheostatically controlled visual subliminals on the affective interrelations of a learning task of subjects within a classroom setting. Four groups of students were used. Subjects were unknowingly exposed to a rheostatically projected subliminal message for 30 minutes during otherwise normal…

A model project designed to improve adolescents' and pre-adolescents' attitudes toward themselves and toward school was implemented in the Cincinnati, Ohio Public Schools. Five major areas of affective development were identified as project goals: self concept, values and decision making, peer relationship, academic confidence, and…

The study investigated the effect of response mode variation (the use or non-use of separate answer sheets) on subject responses (N = 1017) to affective instruments treating both instrument and subject characteristics. Instrument characteristics examined included attitudinal versus personality scale composition, scale items written in first versus…

The following papers are included: (1) "Some Common Goals for Second and First Language Acquisition Research" by Kenji Hakuta; (2) "Research on the Measurement of Affective Variables: Some Remaining Questions" by John W. Oller, Jr.; (3) "The Effects of Neurological Age on Nonprimary Language Acquisition" by Thomas…