The leading frame-of-reference theories make opposing predictions about the effects of message discrepancy on attitude change. Assimilation-contrast theory predicts that messages that are highly discrepant with initial attitudes are likely to produce less attitude change than messages that are mildly discrepant. In contrast, perspective theory…

To address the issue of a teacher's self image, a holistic teaching model was used at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Teachers, student teachers, and preservice students enrolled in a course featuring the Symmetrical Model. The model presents a framework for perceiving self in completeness or symmetry for consideration in an educational…

The role of verbalization in children's mental operations was studied by comparing the mental operations children used in spatial perspective tasks (indicating another's view) and rotation tasks (imagining an object's rotation and one's own subsequent view). Each of 96 children (equal numbers of boys and girls, kindergarten and second grade…

This paper traces the evolving relationship of a teacher and a researcher who shared life in a kindergarten/first-grade classroom for an academic year. Their relationship became the basis for new ways of thinking about the social and academic competencies of children in the classroom, and for new ways of thinking about the aims and conduct of…

This book deals with cognitive development from the perspective of the author's theory of conceptual learning and development (CLD) and from a Piagetian perspective. Chapter I provides an overview of CLD theory and also identifies and discusses the Piagetian constructs of stage, groupement structures, and equilibration. Chapter II focuses on the…

This paper describes three interrelated studies which investigated the cognitions, feelings, and motives involved in the emergence and progression of prosocial behaviors. The first study examined the child's emerging sensitivities to the affective events in his environment through data collected over a 9-month period from groups of 10-, 15-, and…

This paper reviews nine studies which report conflicting results in assessing the relationship between children's role-taking ability and communication skills. The studies included satisfy three criteria: (1) role-taking and communication efficiency are measured independently; (2) tasks used to measure the two skills are significantly different in…

In a sample of 100 children, aged 8-14, there was a clear association between consolidated concrete operational thinking and Kohlberg's Stage 2 moral reasoning, and some evidence that, in order of development, logical thinking precedes role-taking, which precedes moral reasoning, at corresponding levels of conceptual complexity. (Author/SJL)

Activities that make middle school students more aware of and sensitive to the different cultural backgrounds of various races and disabled populations (particularly the deaf and hearing impaired) include student reflection on self-perception; an International Day presenting materials from various populations; and role playing and perspective…

Suggestions of how a university should go about the task of technology transfer are presented. Two important lessons to relate include: the imperative of a decision-making infrastructure and maintaining perspective. Experiences at the University of Houston when a professor made some discoveries in high-temperature semiconductivity are described.…

This study of students (grades 1-12) concluded that the relationship between social-cognitive ability and the communication skill of comforting is contingent on age. (Comforting strategies are those messages having the intended function of alleviating, moderating, or salving the distressed emotional states of others.) (PD)

Nearly 100 Mexican American children and adolescents in grades 2-12 were interviewed in central Texas to determine their understanding of ethnicity and their attitudes toward their own ethnicity. Their responses were interpreted in relation to a developmental model with five stages or "perspectives" in reasoning about ethnicity. The…

The opinions of Alberta community college presidents and senior officials of Alberta Advanced Education and Manpower regarding the impact of environmental forces as defined by Hall's typology on the development of community colleges in the 1980s are explored. The two groups disagreed on government priorities and a growing Alberta population.…

States that the traditional skills courses are only marginally representative of the broad meaning of home economics, such as individual and family improvement. Discusses housing from a home economics perspective, emphasizing concern with home and family life, social perspective, and housing as a dimension of life style. (MF)

Competency-based teacher education is attacked, and adaptation of the methods theory of acting to teacher preparation programs is advocated. (LH)