Browsing by Author "Steffens, Stephen Frederick"

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    Affect and memory : an investigation of a learning task that utilizes affect as an aid to memory : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1985) Steffens, Stephen Frederick
    This thesis explored through experimental and correlational conditions the relationship of affect and memory. Some of the individual and situational factors that were associated with the variance in performance were identified. One hundred and twenty children between nine and twelve years of age in three widely separated schools participated in the study. The children were provided with lists of words to learn by using five learning tasks. A learning task that involved affect achieved memory performances that were quantitatively greater than the results achieved after other learning tasks. The empathic ability of the children was measured through an analogue. The children responded how individuals felt in certain video excerpts. The empathic ability of the children was related significantly to memory performances achieved after the learning task that involved affect. A questionnaire was answered by the children that gave their perceptions of their mother's and their father's behaviours and feelings. Various statments appeared that were consistently and significantly related to the empathic ability of the children. These items indicated that the factors of support, anger-anxiety, and demand were differentially related to the empathic ability of the children. A model of relationships that included the child's perceptions of the parents, the empathic ability of the child, and memory performances achieved after the learning task that involved affect was presented. Some implications for classroom implementation were advanced.
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    The effects of teacher attending and responding behaviours on pupil achievement : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Education at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1978) Steffens, Stephen Frederick
    This thesis reports a field experiment of teachers' non-verbal attending and verbal responding behaviours and their relation to pupil achievement. It was expected that teachers who used higher level non-verbal and verbal skills would have children who achieved at a higher level. A group of fifteen teachers, five in three different schools, were video-taped at the beginning of the school year. Because all of the teachers were functioning at low levels on scales of attending and responding, one group of teachers was given ten hours of training in these skills. One other group of five teachers was given a placebo treatment and the remaining group received no treatment. All of these teachers were video-taped at the end of the school year. All of the children were tested at the beginning and the end of the school year on standardized achievement measures. Analysis of the data revealed that ten hours of training given one hour at a time at intervals of one week was not sufficient to establish average classroom conditions that were significantly different from the other experimental treatments. The trained teachers did improve in the expected direction more than the other teachers. The students of the two teachers who responded at the highest levels were compared to the students of the two teachers who responded at the lowest level. The results supported the hypothesis. From this sample of teachers those who were female, who responded to feelings, who had students from a higher socio-economic status, who were just beginning to teach, and who attended and responded appropriately had students with higher results.