THE MINNESOTA TEACHER ATTITUDE INVENTORY

This paper reports on the results of a postal survey carried out basically to examine the nature and extent of usage of mnemonic techniques employed by Psychology students in preparing for finals examinations. Two hundred and five post‐graduates of the Psychology Department at University College, Swansea, i.e. all students who had sat finals papers in Psychology between 1967 and 1971, were sent a questionnaire. The results, based on a response rate of 74 per cent, indicate that 53 per cent of students used mnemonics in examination preparation in order to retain points to be made in essays, 37 per cent repeatedly read material to be retained, 4 per cent claimed they made no attempt to memorize material as such, but rather arrived at an intrinsic understanding of the material. In terms of examination performance there are no significant differences between users and non‐users of mnemonics. This finding does not, therefore, support the view that the use of mnemonics is beneficial to examination performance.     

Gifts in academic and special libraries: a selected bibliography

From the time the Reverend John Harvard donated his collection of books in 1638 to start the library at the newly established Harvard University [1], gifts have played an important role in the development of collections in U.S. academic and special libraries. Today, gifts are still vital to most libraries as publication costs rise and book budgets shrink. Over the years, much has been written on material gifts to libraries, from their use in collection building to the practical points of handling gifts and donors in the technical services area. Culled from the pool of literature, this annotated bibliography is a collection of many of the most useful and informative sources written on the various aspects of gifts in libraries.     

Life and death of a viewer poll

The “viewer poll,” as a programming and research technique, lasted for but a short span of broadcasting's history. The case history presented here should serve to illustrate both the strengths and many weaknesses of this technique. Dr. Steven H. Chaffee is associate professor and assistant chairman of the Mass Communications Research Center of the University of Wisconsin.