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The relationship among teaching methods, student personality traits, and learning outcomes was investigated in this study involving 125 7th and 8th grade students who were being taught to think critically about public controversy. While background material was presented to all students uniformly, students were assigned to two different types of discussion groups, socratic and recitation, for the discussion of short cases presenting public policy decisions. In the socratic discussions students were forced to take positions and defend them. The recitation discussions emphasized the nonpersonal discussion of various dimensions of the issue posed by the case. Personality measures were administered to the students. Interactions were measured using a variety of tests. Findings do not indicate stability of interaction patterns in the sense that certain personality variables consistently interacted with the two discussion styles investigated. There is a strong suggestion that the appropriateness of the teaching method depends not only on the student's personality traits, but on the learning outcome to be measured. (RM)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert