UNIVERSITY TRAINING IN HUMAN RELATIONS SKILLS

Abstract

In the areas concerned with human behavior, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, management, education, home economics and so on, college classroom procedures rarely depart from conventional teaching methods. The assumptions guiding learning about human factors are the same as those in any area concerned with a student's acquiring understanding and factual information. Yet cognitive learning, of the sort that takes place in a classroom, frequently has little effect on day-by-day behavior of an individual working with others. The phrase is widely heard, "There is a wide gap between principles and practice." If the classical approach to teaching in the area of human relations is ineffective for achieving concrete individual changes in behavior, what is an alternative?