The purposes of this study were to determine the effect of a short-term parent-education program and to investigate the relationship between parents' knowledge of child development and parents' attitudes toward parent-child relationships. The basic problem under consideration was to assay whether the level of parental knowledge of child development principles makes a difference in the attitudes of the parent in the relationship. Hypothesis I predicted that subjects participating in the training sessions would exhibit a significant gain in knowledge of child development. An analysis of covariance determined the gain to be significant at the .01 level. Hypothesis II stated that a significant relationship would exist between the subjects' knowledge of the defined principles of child development and the subjects' attitudes toward parent-child interactions. A Pearson Product-Moment Correlation of the scores of experimental group and control group on the PARI and the cognitive test revealed a negative correlation of -0.1363. Thus, the second hypothesis that a significant relationship would exist had to be rejected. Hypothesis III projected that a significant difference would exist between the posttest attitudes of the participants of the experimental group and those of the control group. Analysis of covariance was used to determine the significance of the …

A study was made to determine the views of elementary principals regarding criteria for a quality kindergarten program and to plan a staff development program based upon the data collected. The study was limited to elementary principals in the eight Texas counties of Education Service Center Region 10 with kindergartens on their campuses during the 1973-1974 school year. Principals who had kindergartens on their campuses before the 1973-1974 school year did not perform better on the questionnaire than the principals with kindergartens for the first time during the 1973-1974 school year. Comparisons of individual and composite item scores showed similar responses from both groups, the only exception being on an item pertaining to the appropriateness of wheeled toys on the elementary playground. There was a difference of approximately 15 percent in favor of the more experienced group. Principals who had completed early childhood education courses scored slightly higher than principals who had not completed such courses. An increase in the number of semester hours completed did not appear to improve performance on the questionnaire.

Twenty-seven parents with young children were randomly assigned to an experimental group which underwent an affective skill-building program, or one of two control groups. Pre and postassessments measured levels of communication, discrimination, and child vocalization for each parent. Multilinear regression analysis indicated that final communication skills among the three groups were significantly different. Final communication skills of the experimental group were significantly greater than those of the Hawthorne control group. Final discrimination skills for the three groups showed a trend toward being significantly different. Levels of child vocalization did not show significant changes. The experimental program was successful in improving accurate parent-child communication in the affective realm.

The problem of the study was to discover whether the selfconcepts of selected children in the primary grades could be enhanced. The purpose of the study was to determine the feasibility of using tape-recorded stories to enhance the self-concepts of selected primary grade children. A treatment of the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale for sex differences showed no significant differences for either the experimental or control groups. Some enhancement of the self-concepts of primary grade children may be possible by means of auditory non-teacher directed activities under properly controlled conditions. Several areas should be further investigated. A regular school year study should be designed to produce results applicable to a more general population. Such a study might answer questions regarding peer influences, the relationship between self-concept and academic achievement, the tolerance of primary grade children for prolonged treatment, and teacher attitude toward conducting such activities. Studies should be conducted to determine the relative value of simultaneous visual and auditory presentations for the enhancement of self-concept.