Many young children watch television too long, indiscriminately, and too late into the evening. Their viewing may have an adverse effect on play and on creative and outdoor activities. At the same time, television watching often results in increased general knowledge. It may have a positive effect on language development ...

A concern for language learning, and the place of languages in the overall educational experience have not been the issues of great moment in New Zealand that they have been overseas, except amongst those actually involved in the teaching of foreign languages. In 1974 a small research committee was set ...

Behaviour modification is something that many teachers and parents regard with great suspicion. The cause for this distrust is not hard to find. The jargon of the process has a mind-bending ring to it: 'operant conditioning', 'contingency management', 'reinforcement learning', 'maladaptive functioning' and so on, and hints strongly at a ...

Why are there so many behaviour problems in children these days? Do they reflect falling values and standards in society and a breakdown in authority and discipline at home and in school? Are they the hallmarks of increasing deprivation and maladjustment, the outward signs of unfulfilled emotional needs, of conflict ...

In simple terms diagnostic testing consists of asking the learner to attempt certain tasks, so that the teacher can gain insights into his difficulties by observing his performance on them. Teachers will differ in the procedures they use to obtain this information. Some will use an oral reading setting as ...

Problems of distance and communication are part of the heritage of the Pacific islands, spread as they are east and west over 5,000 kilometres, and with more than 1000 languages used among their 5 million people. In the past decade however, faster travel and telecommunications have begun to awaken a ...

During the past fifteen to twenty years mathematicians and mathematics teachers have placed heavy emphasis on discovery modes of learning and on mathematical recreations, partly because such activities are thought to develop a positive attitude to mathematics and to give a better understanding of mathematics than older teaching techniques did ...

What do New Zealand secondary school students think of History?
Starting from an analysis of the entry statistics for School Certificate, University Entrance and Scholarship examinations from 1969 to 1975 to compare trends in History with those in other subjects, my study went on with a survey of pupil perceptions ...

Research shows sex differences in the development of children and adolescents. This review examines how these influence behaviour and attainment.

The financial cost to a family with a handicapped child, whether living at home or away, is often very considerable. The Living with Handicap report of 1970 found the need for financial help "pressing", and Woodburn's study found that the 78 families with spina bifida children had 179 areas of ...