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The effects of source valence, including its components source credibility, attraction, and homophily, on voter preference were examined in this study. A systematic sample with a random start of 350 registered Democratic voters in Tallahassee, Florida, was used to test the effects of eight dimensions of source valence on voter preference. The differential valence of the two candidates was the best predictor of voter preference. The eight-variable model accounted for 61% of the variance in voter preference, while attitude homophily alone accounted for 58% of that variance.The relationship between voter evaluations of political candidates and voting preferences has been the subject of considerable investigation. These evaluations have been called candidate images, voter attitudes, voter perceptions of the candidate and a variety of other labels. One important goal of this research was to ascertain the relationship between these voter evaluations or images of the candidates and voter preferences in electoral contests.The literature reveals several problems that have prevented a thorough test of this relationship. First, many studies on candidate image have suffered from the operationalization of image as a general evaluative construct rather than an empirically based, multidimensional construct. Second, studies which have utilized multidimensional measures of image were conducted principally in presidential elections, preventing generalization to state and local elections. Finally, most studies have been conducted in general elections where the impact of Perer A. Andersen (Ph.D., Florida State University, 1975) is assistant professor of speech communication at West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506.party affiliation is more powerful than the voters' evaluation of the candidates. Assessing the impact of voters' evaluations in primary elections would eliminate this party-identification effect and would allow the specific effect of voters' evaluation of the candidates to be studied. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between voter evaluations of candidates and voting preference.Previous candidate evaluation or image research has demonstrated that evaluations of candidates have a substantial impact on voting. Stokes (1966) maintains that fluctuations in electoral attitudes have focused primarily on the candidates themselves. This study, however, did not carefully measure the various dimensions of candidate image. Leuthold ( 1968) found that in congressional elections nearly two-thirds of the voters thought that the candidate was their most important reason for voting, but no actual measures of image were collected. Instead, the conclusion is based on reports of the voter's reason for hedhis voting decision. Likewise, Conway (1968) reports that in low stimulus elections, personal appeals and campaign- IN MEMORIAMWord of the sudden death of Dr. Robert J. Kibler was received while this article was in press. His passing is a severe loss to all who have known and loved him, as well as to ICA, wh...

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Most educational psychology books contain a section on instructional objectives, and frequently, under this topic a statement can be found to the effect that instructional planning is most efficient when instructional objectives are specified in behavioral terms. Behavioral objectives describe the behaviors that successful learners should be able to demonstrate upon completing a course (Gagne, 1965, p. 241; Lindvall, 1964). Mager goes a step further and suggests that not only is it helpful for the instructor to specify behavioral objectives for a course but that by giving a copy of the course objectives to the students, the students will become much more efficient learners (Mager, 1962, p, 4). The rationale for this suggestion is that if a learner knows precisely what is expected of him then he can better focus his energies on course essentials and even evaluate his own progress in terms of achieving the course objectives. The present study was designed to determine whether providing students with behavioral objectives does in fact increase their learning efficiency.Related research by Mager and Clark (1963) found that adults, when provided with curriculum control and detailed behaviorally stated objectives, completed an engineer training course in seven and a half weeks which normally consumed six months training time when behavioral objectives and learner-control were not used. PROCEDUREA beginning educational psychology course a t Southern Illinois University was analyzed and it was determined that the behavioral requirements for the course consisted primarily of paasing multiple choice tests over lectures and reading asaignments.For the experiment, the twelve-week course was divided into six, two-week instructional units with a different content area being covered in each unit. Fifty-item multiple choice tests were then written for each unit. The procedure used during the quarter was as follows. For the first, third, and fifth instructional units, the students were provided at the beginning of the unit with a syllabus listing the topics to be covered in the unit, the reading assignment and the date of the test over the unit. For the second, fourth, and sixth units the students were provided at the beginning of the units with the reading assignment, the date of the unit test, and eighty stems (question parts for multiple choice test items). Fifty of the eighty stems were used on the unit test. Page numbers in the textbook where the information for the test items could be found were also included with each of the eighty stems. Test items covering lecture material indicated that the information to answer the question would be presented in the lectures.The 320 undergraduate students enrolled for the course were randomly assigned to six groups. Each of the six unit tests was administered t o one of the six groups on the first day of class. (These will be referred to as pretests.) Then each unit test was administered to the entire class a t the end of each tweweek unit (these will be referred to as posttests). Th...

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