Personality and Attitude Change in Counselor Trainees: An Evaluation

Subjects were 22 participants (14 males and 8 females) in a 38-week Guidance Institute designed to prepare secondary counselors to work with disadvantaged youth. Twenty students with similar characteristics enrolled in the regular counselor education program served as a control group. The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) and Semantic Differentials were administered to experimental and control subjects at the beginning and end of the Institute program. Results indicated that both groups made significant changes on the POI, with the amount and direction of change favoring the Institute subjects. The authors concluded that the Institute had a highly significant impact on the personal development of participants and that the Institute was more efficient than the regular program in eliciting such change.     

The Fakability of the Personality Orientation Inventory

Attempts to fake a good impression on the POI typically result in lower scores for subjects unknowledgeable in self-actualization, and in higher scores for knowledgable subjects. POI fakahility during counselor selection procedures was investigated through two test administrations with a group of 21 new graduate students in counseling. Subjects were not given self-actualization information. Scores under counselor selection fake-set procedures were significantly higher (p <. 05) on 4 of the 12 scales than scores obtained under standard testing instructions. The results imply new counseling students have sufficient information about self-actualization to dissimulate POI scores.     

A Plan of Classifying Pupils

ABSTRACT

Critical ethnic and gender gaps exist in college retention and graduation rates. Early achievement motivation may play an important role in student persistence. A sample of undergraduates completed surveys tapping motivation at the beginning (n = 591) and end (n = 232) of their first semester in college. African American and Caucasian students were more academically self-efficacious than Asian American students. Self-efficacy increased over the semester and was higher for male than female students at both time points. African American and Asian American students were initially more extrinsically motivated than Caucasian students; however, by the end of the semester, all ethnic groups were similar on extrinsic motivation. Female students were more extrinsically motivated and mastery oriented than male students who were more performance oriented. Performance goal orientations were negatively associated with grade point average whereas mastery orientation, intrinsic, and extrinsic motivation were positively associated with academic performance. Implications for higher education are discussed.     

Balancing Plan-Driven and Agile Methods in Software Engineering Project Courses

Abstraction is a major concept in computer science and serves as a powerful tool in software development. Pattern-oriented instruction (POI) is a pedagogical approach that incorporates patterns in an introductory computer science course in order to structure the learning of algorithmic problem solving. This paper examines abstraction processes in the course of solving an algorithmic problem and highlights three distinct, although interrelated, facets of abstraction: pattern recognition, black-boxing, and structure identification. A study that examined the influence of the POI approach on students' abstraction skills is described; students who learned according to the POI approach were compared with students who learned in a traditional manner with regard to analogical reasoning and problem decomposition and solution, as well as verbal expression. The three facets of abstraction were used to analyze students' abstraction skills and their competency in algorithmic problem solving.     

Understanding student pathways in context-rich problems

This paper describes the ways that students’ problem-solving behaviors evolve when solving multi-faceted, context-rich problems within a web-based learning environment. During the semester, groups of two or three students worked on five physics problems that required drawing on more than one concept and, hence, could not be readily solved with simple “plug-and-chug” strategies. The problems were presented to students in a data-rich, online problem-based learning environment that tracked which information items were selected by students as they attempted to solve the problem. The students also completed a variety of tasks, like entering an initial qualitative analysis of the problem into an online form. Students were not constrained to complete these tasks in any specific order. As they gained more experience in solving context-rich physics problems, student groups showed some progression towards expert-like behavior as they completed qualitative analysis earlier and were more selective in their perusal of informational resources. However, there was room for more improvement as approximately half of the groups still completed the qualitative analysis task towards the end of the problem-solving process rather than at the beginning of the task when it would have been most useful to their work.     

Teachers' perceptions of the effects of a scientific literary course on subsequent learning in biology

Five teachers were interviewed as to their perceptions of the effect of an intervention to teach scientific literacy on learning in subsequent biology courses. The sample consisted of 450 students who had a literacy course in ninth grade and had completed tenth-grade biology. At the end of the academic year the biology teachers were interviewed and asked to compare the biology students who had the literacy course to students they had taught in earlier years. The biology teachers concluded that the literacy course did have an effect on students' subsequent ability to learn biology. The strength of the effect varied according to level of biology. Students had a better understanding of the nature of science and better laboratory and process skills. They were also better at analyzing data. The advanced and intermediate biology students were more creative, more likely to take risks, and engage in hypothetical thinking than other groups of students that the teachers had taught. Although the purpose of the literacy course was to teach literacy skills the advanced students retained a substantial amount of content material that was applicable to biology.     

Effects of Individualized Instruction on Control Expectancy: A Field Test

Abstract

This study was conducted in order to determine whether or not one semester of individualized instruction is enough time to create in students an increased sense of being able to control payoffs in life and to lead students to develop a more realistic appraisal of their ability to control payoffs in an academic environment. Paradoxically, the converse may occur. When first confronted with a success-oriented instructional process and opportunities for self-pacing, students with failure histories may become more external, anxious, or uncertain. In order to examine these notions, a sample of 126 educationally deficient students who were beginning their first semester of study in a community college were selected from 18 different sections of math, English, and history and tested twice—once at the beginning of the term and again late in the term just prior to finals.     

Creating an Online Learning Community: Is it Possible?

As institutions are moving towards offering more online and distance education courses, scholars have reported that instructors may have difficulty developing learning communities among students enrolled in these courses (DiRamio and Wolverton 2006). The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in students’ perceptions of a learning community when enrolled in an online or on-campus introduction to counseling course. Participants were beginning graduate and advanced undergraduate students interested in pursuing a higher education degree in counseling. Results indicated no significant difference in students’ perceptions of learning communities based on course format.     

Guiding music students during workshop-based on-the-job learning

This article explains the realisation and impact of tutoring on learning through a new kind of on-the-job learning method in workshops led by professional musicians. The research is a qualitative case study involving 62 upper secondary Finnish vocational music students who participated in 11 workshops. The research data consist of (a) workshop plans and personal learning goals written by the students before the workshops and (b) reflective essays about experiences after the workshops. The data were analysed using theory-oriented content analyses. In the workshop, the guidance-oriented interaction promoting learning starts at the beginning of the workshop with cooperative planning. The interaction between the students and the professional musician influenced the nature of the guidance – the professional musician was more like a colleague rather than a teacher. The students expressed that they had been able to influence the workshop goals in different phases and, thus, their professional competence had increased significantly. In vocational institutes, it is important to observe different ways of realising on-the-job learning and to develop new models of action, like the workshop method, to promote the development of students’ skills and competence.     

Changes in personal orientation and critical thinking among adults returning to school through weekend college: An alternative evaluation

Seventy-two returning adult students participating in a weekend social science option showed statistically significant increases on 11Personal Orientation Inventory subscales and theWatson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. The program involved an interdisciplinary and experiential learning approach. Utilizing t-tests, no significant differences between males and females on the pretest nor on pre-post change were found. This evaluation supports successful experiential learning as effective in continuation and reinforcement of the process of self-actualizing.The author expresses his thanks to Mary Van De Warker for codesigning and coinstructing the Weekend Social Science option with him and to Kathleen Crittenden for her helpful criticism of an earlier draft of this article.     

Exploring Self-Efficacy among Entry-Level and Advanced BSW Students

This study compared a sample of entry-level and advanced BSW students, who completed pretest and posttest self-efficacy measures, to assess their level of confidence in performing social work tasks after 15 weeks of instruction. By the end of the semester, only advanced students made significant gains in self-efficacy beliefs, and they showed a significantly higher self-efficacy belief than entry-level students. Results suggest that increased mastery experiences, as found in the advanced social work curriculum, may help students develop confidence in their ability to practice as professional social workers.     

Beginning and end of the internship: student teachers’ interpersonal profiles and the accuracy of their self-beliefs

An important purpose of internships in teacher preparation programmes is to develop competence through experience. The research questions in the present study concern student teachers’ interpersonal profiles (i.e. patterns of their interpersonal behaviour as perceived by students) and the accuracy of their self-belief regarding the interpersonal relationship with students at the beginning and end of the internship. Participants were student teachers (n=34) of a one-year teacher education programme. There were fewer student teachers with preferable interpersonal profiles at the end of the internship than in the beginning. Self-beliefs at the beginning indicated that the majority of student teachers were underestimating themselves; at the end of the internship most of them were overestimating themselves. About two-thirds had more accurate self-beliefs at the end of the internship than at the beginning. Overestimating oneself seemed negatively related to more accurate self-beliefs at the end of the internship and student teachers with more preferable profiles had more accurate self-beliefs.     

Maslow's hierarchy of needs revisited

The paper reviews Maslow's hierarchy of prepotent needs and his characterization of the self-actualizing personality. It suggests that since so few among the general population meet Maslow's own criteria for self-actualization, an educational system designed to produce such personalities must fail of its object in an overwhelming percentage of cases. The goal being unreachable, teachers tend to lower their sights and attend only to the lower stages of the hierarchy (security, self-esteem), and thus dilute the cognitive content of learning. Moreover, Maslow's hierarchy is not dialectical, in the sense that the completion of each stage does not necessarily lead to the next level. The self-actualizing personality appears as a mysterious leap from one stage to another, and cannot be engineered from without. As an alternative, the paper suggests a more logical sequence of needs based on the development of rationality.     

The relationship between locus of control and academic level and sex of secondary school students

The relationships among locus of control, academic program, and sex of grade 9 secondary school students were investigated. Two hundred sixty-seven high school students from advanced, general, and basic level programs were administered the modified forms of the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children and the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire. As hypothesized, students in the advanced level program were more internally controlled than either general or basic level students. As well, advanced level students were more internally responsible for their intellectual-academic failures than general level students. Sex differences as they relate to specific expectancies in intellectual achievement situations are also discussed.     

Meeting Professional Competencies through Specialized Distance Education: The McMaster University Addiction Studies Program

Historically, addiction has been an area in which Canadian social workers have received limited formal education. This reality led to the development of 18 core technical competencies through the auspices of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse in 2006. A survey of Canadian schools and faculties of social work found that social work students might obtain a grounding in many of these competencies, however, there was no certainty of this. An option now for those interested in becoming more proficient in this field of addiction is a specialized distance education program developed by McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Along with meeting the majority of the core competencies, there are several other attributes that make this program unique. It offers 27 distinct addiction-specific course options at both an introductory and an advanced level; has continuous enrollment allowing students to begin a course at the beginning of any month; has no minimum course load requirement; and meets the academic requirements for optional certification through the Canadian Addiction Counselors Certification Federation. In a nation like Canada, with a small population spread across a large geographic area, the Addiction Studies Program may serve as a template for offering specialized distance education to enhance professional competencies and thus better prepare social workers to serve community needs.     

Students’ understanding of the number line / Estudiantes pensando en la recta numérica

We studied the conceptions of students coming from secondary education and university regarding the number line as a representation of real numbers. In the context of a wider questionnaire, 307 students were presented with a task consisting of two verbal items and one graphic item related to the number line. The students were all at different levels in their study of mathematics (in the third, fourth or fifth year of secondary education, or at the beginning or advanced stage of a university degree in mathematics, biology or physical education). A gradient in the depth of the students’ conceptions, associated with the level of their studies in mathematics, was found. This gradient extends from the estrangement of facing the problem or a conception of a drawn or physical matter line, which was associated with students with a lower level of mathematical studies, passing through a vision centred around potential numeric density or a line containing points (discrete), up to an instrumental conception of the line as supportive of magnitudes in advanced students of biology and focusing on continuity sustained by advanced students of mathematics.     

Perceptions of School and Aspirations of Rural Students with Learning Disabilities and Their Nondisabled Peers

This study examined the school perceptions and educational aspirations of 6,599 rural high school students, a sample that included 428 students with learning disabilities (LD). Regardless of disability status, rural high school students who had negative perceptions of school had less well‐defined postsecondary educational plans and less often aspired to complete college or pursue an advanced degree. Compared to nondisabled youth, rural students with LD were more likely to have negative perceptions of school and lower postsecondary aspirations. However, students with LD who had positive perceptions of school more often planned to pursue postsecondary education and aspired to complete college or an advanced degree. Implications for research and interventions pertaining to the educational attainment of students with LD are discussed.     

An Analysis of Personal Factors that Determine Carrie's Self ——Actualization in Sister Carrie

In Dreiser's novel Sister Carrie, the heroine Carrie's self-actualizing natures are reflected in her self-actualization effort. Those natures include the acceptance of reality and potential to be actress, etc., which play the crucial role of her star journey and self-actualizing effort. Therefore, every woman should have the spiritual spirit; and, at the same time, pursue nobler spiritual life.     

The nature of Chinese Language classroom learning environments in Singapore secondary schools

This article reports findings from a classroom environment study which was designed to investigate the nature of Chinese Language classroom environments in Singapore secondary schools. We used a perceptual instrument, the Chinese Language Classroom Environment Inventory, to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards their Chinese Language classroom learning environments using six dimensions, namely, Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Cooperation, Task Orientation and Equity. The investigation was carried out using a sample of 1,460 secondary three (Grade 9) students from 50 Chinese Language classes in 25 Singapore government secondary schools. The nature of the Chinese Language classroom learning environments was interpreted from analyses of the perception scores obtained, as well as from various comparisons of the perception scores between different groups. Although both the Chinese Language teachers and students perceived their present classroom learning environments positively, they would like improvements in all the six dimensions of the classroom learning environments under investigation. Also teachers perceived a more positive classroom learning environment than their students in the same class. In addition, female students perceived their actual and preferred classroom environments more positively than their male counterparts.