Each of four teachers taught ecology to eight sixth-grade groups. Eight treatments factorially varied two levels of teacher structuring, soliciting, and reacting. Low soliciting yielded higher student achievement. Low structuring and low reacting interacted to yield lower achievement. Retention measures showed similar main and interaction effects.…

Teachers read and rated a description of either a male or female student who demonstrated either masculine or feminine sex role behavior, and whose major course of study was either English or physics. Student sex role influenced both teachers' perceptions of students and their evaluation of student writing. (Author/RD)

First-, third-, and fifth-grade children and their teachers were interviewed in the fall and spring to assess the developing relationship between teachers' and students' beliefs about punishment. Teachers with more punitive beliefs had students whose beliefs were more punitive when compared with students whose teachers had less punitive beliefs.…

Kirby and Das (EJ 182 444) dichotomized measures of individual differences and treated them as independent variables in an analysis of variance. Correlational analysis would have provided more powerful tests of their hypotheses. Interpretation of the dichotomized variables as independent, causal antecedents of their measures of intelligence would…

Humphreys' comments on double-median splits (TM 504 009) are essentially correct, but are not relevant to the original Kirby and Das article (EJ 182 444). His comments do not weaken our findings. (Author/RD)

The effects of advance organizers in learning unfamiliar material from logical or randomly organized texts was investigated in two experiments. Advance organizers enhanced performance on questions requiring integration of facts from different sections of the text. Results of both studies were interpreted as support for assimilation encoding…

Two studies investigated memory processes involved in the Visual-Sequential Memory subtest of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. In study 1, differences between second and fourth graders were due to greater use of stimulus labeling strategies by fourth graders. In study 2, labeling strategies were taught, improving performance.…

Preschool children copied peg locations with standardized comparison pegboards aligned horizontally and diagonally and with three levels of pegboard complexity. Error patterns varied with type of alignment and display complexity. Results failed to support Bryant's hypothesis that mirror image confusions are no more frequent than other in-line…

Mean response times and slope of response times were correlated with intelligence and achievement for 94 sixth-graders. Mean response time reliability was greater than that of slope, and correlated significantly with IQ and achievement. Speed of processing information generalized across experimental tasks and reliably indicated intellectual…

Student and practicing teachers rated severity of classroom misbehaviors ascribed to Black or White attractive or unattractive children. Following student teaching, ratings of Black children's transgressions increased in severity, and ratings of White children's transgressions remained the same. Practicing teachers were affected by student…

Undergraduates completed one of two questionnaires that were identical except for the course grading system, pass-fail vs letter grades. The "overjustification hypothesis," which proposes that grades undermine high intrinsic interest but augment low interest in academic tasks, was partially supported. Questions concerning the classroom application…

An experiment was conducted to determine the conditions under which selective imitation of relative clauses could be produced in preschool. Imitation training was more effective than modeling alone, and instructions and reinforcements were effective in an additive manner. Implications for the role of imitation in language development are…

Research on teacher leadership was reviewed, and a new approach that views teachers in a situational context was implemented. College student performance was found to be significantly correlated with teacher supportiveness and directiveness under low student role clarity but not high role clarity. (Author/RD)

Kindergarten and first grade children participated in a training program designed to facilitate moral development. Stories that stimulated discussion of solutions to moral issues were read to children in the treatment group. Children in the treatment group, compared to controls, improved significantly in three of four specific areas tested.…

Twenty-nine fourth grade girls were read stories with women either in traditional roles or nontraditional roles. Girls who heard nontraditional stories rated traditionally male jobs and characteristics as appropriate for females more than girls who heard traditional stories. Results are discussed in terms of sexual bias and girls' aspirations.…