An analysis of a performance feedback system: the effects of timing and feedback, public posting, and praise upon academic performance and peer interaction

In the first experiment, after establishing baseline composition rates in each classroom, timing (announcing time limits) and feedback (student self-scoring) were introduced followed by the introduction, removal, and reintroduction of public posting of highest scores. Timing and feedback improved story writing performance and public posting of highest scores improved performance even further in both classrooms. Teacher praise produced further improvement in one classroom but had no effect on performance in the other. Changes in on-task behavior paralleled changes in writing rate. Comments made by children concerning their own work or work of their peers were recorded throughout the experiment. Although the baseline rate of performance comments was almost zero, the introduction of each variable markedly increased the rate of performance comments. In the second experiment, baseline rates on reading and language exercises were established in a fifth-grade classroom. The entire performance feedback system was introduced on a multiple baseline across the two behaviors and then removed during the final phase of the experiment. Introducing the system improved performance on both tasks. These results further increased the generality of some of the findings of the previous experiment and of previous research on the efficacy of the experimental package of timing, feedback, public posting, and praise.     

Occupational mobility as measured by Holland's theory of career selection

This study examined the occupational mobility of men ages 45–59 as measured by Holland's theory of career selection and its relationship to men in the work force. Stability was discussed in two distinct ways: (1) stability within a job, and (2) stability in the kind of work a man does over a career. In his research Holland concluded that Realistic and Investigative personality types would change personality type less often and have more stable job choices in comparison to other personality types. The results of this study supported these findings to some extent, but also concluded that stability in a personality type was strongly influenced by the number of jobs available in a particular personality type and the structure of the labor market demand. In addition the results showed that psychological concepts seem to be more important in changing jobs than in selecting initial jobs.     

Imagined spatial transformation of one's body

This study examined two related phenomena: (a) the judgment of whether a human body part belongs to the left or right half of the body and (b) the imagined spatial transformation of one's body. In three experiments, observers made left-right judgments of a part of a body whose orientation differed from their own by a rotation about one of 13 axes. To do so, they imagined themselves passing to the orientation of the stimulus. Time for (a) left-right judgments and (b) accompanying imagined spatial transformations depended on the extent of the orientation difference (OD) between the observer and stimulus. More important, time for phenomena (a) and (b) depended strongly, and in the same way, on the direction of OD. Further results showed that the rate of imagined spatial transformations can vary strongly for different axes and directions of rotation about an axis. These and other results (e.g., Parsons, 1987a) suggest that temporal and kinematic properties of imagined spatial transformations are more object-specific than could be previously assumed.     

Individual differences in secondary task performance

The purpose of this research was to use secondary task performance as a predictor of performance on a difficult primary task. Reaction time (RT) to secondary probes that occurred during the rehearsal period of an easy memory task were used to measure spare capacity associated with the memory task. This measure was then correlated with performance on a harder version of the same memory task. Experiments 1-4 involved a paired associate memory task. Probe RT was sensitive to the difficulty of the paired associate task, and analysis of individual differences showed that probe RT during the easy version of the task was correlated with performance on a harder version of the task. Experiment 4 also utilized a spatial memory task. Probe RT was less sensitive to the demands of the spatial memory task, and in that case, the "easy-to-hard" prediction was not successful.     

Perceptual selectivity and information processing by fast and slow learners in paired-associate learning

Utilizing a design requiring perceptual rather than verbal discrimination in a compound-stimulus, P-A learning task, two hypotheses related to individual differences in perceptual selection of a functional stimulus cue and the processing of information were explored. The hypothesis that fast learners (determined by pretest) would “process” more information than slow learners in P-A learning was supported. Slow learners consistently ignored the random shape to which instructions specifically directed them and selected instead the context color as the functional cue. A second hypothesis that negative transfer due to proactive inhibition would be greater for slow learners was also supported.