Vocational training choices of women: public and private colleges

This paper contrasts the profiles of women who choose to pursue vocational training in either public institutions (community colleges) or private institutions (career colleges) in Canada with particular attention given to respondents’ life‐course positions. The study employs 1998 Adult Education and Training Survey data. Correspondence analysis shows the relation between training choices of women, their individual characteristics and selected situational, dispositional, and institutional factors. The space topography determined by the correspondence between training choices and women profiles indicates that duration of training constitutes the primary institutional feature distinguishing choice. Older women who need to balance both work and family obligations tend to enroll in single courses and are attracted to the modular programming of the private colleges. In contrast, the traditional program‐based vocational training offered by community colleges is the preferred option for younger women.     

Impact of videotaped instruction in dialogic reading strategies: An investigation of caregiver implementation integrity

Research during the past 15 years has repeatedly demonstrated the beneficial effects of dialogic reading (DR), a form of shared storybook reading, on the development of language in preschool children. Although much is known about the effects of DR on children, little attention has been paid to the role that adult caregivers play in the DR experience. Specifically, we do not yet have an understanding of the frequency and consistency with which caregivers use DR strategies in daily practice, prior to and following training. In the current study, the integrity with which six caregivers used DR strategies with their preschool‐aged children subsequent to viewing a commercially available training videotape was investigated. Results indicate that caregivers can learn to use several DR strategies through videotaped training; however, supplemental training may be necessary to teach caregivers certain strategies if they are to use them with integrity. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Revisiting print exposure: exploring differential links to vocabulary,comprehension and reading rate

Undergraduates (N=171) completed a revised version of the Author Recognition Test ( Stanovich & West, 1989 ). The resulting print exposure scores were divided into two dimensions: personal reading experience (primary print knowledge – PPK) and secondary print knowledge (SPK). Both PPK and SPK were correlated with print exposure, but not with each other. PPK correlated more strongly with reading‐related variables (vocabulary, comprehension and reading rate) than did SPK. Of particular importance, PPK accounted for variance in all three criterion variables after the effects of SPK had been factored out. Thus, these data support the notion that it is the act of reading over and above memory for reading‐related information that furthers the development of linguistic skill.     

Developing a postgraduate work-based curriculum using an Intervention Mapping Approach

Advanced practitioner skill development has become an important focus in health service delivery as increasingly complex consumer needs, practice environments and national professional registration requirements impact on professional work practices. Increasingly, work-based or workplace learning experiences are being seen as an effective means for maintaining skill currency across working lives. Currently there is limited literature on pedagogical practices to support the educational and training requirements associated with development across a person's working life. This paper reports on an example of how an intervention mapping framework was used to guide the development, implementation and evaluation of a work-based praxis course for students in an interprofessional, online postgraduate mental health programme. The intervention mapping framework provided a stepped process to guide decision-making and allowed the incorporation of theory and evidence into the course design. This approach provided a stepped process to guide decision-making and allowed the incorporation of theory and evidence into the course design. While the use of the intervention mapping framework is often used within health promotion arenas, particularly for the effective design of health promotion educational programmes, it is argued that this framework can be utilised effectively when developing curriculum for use within higher education programmes.     

University and College Counselors as Athletic Team Consultants: Using a Structural Family Therapy Model

Increasingly, university and college counselors are sought out by their institution's sports coaches for assistance in achieving team goals. Traditional sport psychology models that have the individual athlete as their primary focus are insufficient frameworks for team‐level consultations. The authors believe that systemic approaches may provide an effective alternative. In this article, the authors offer and illustrate S. Minuchin's (1974) Structural Family Therapy as a heuristic model for conceptualizing and intervening with athletic teams.     

Stability and correlates of student evaluations of teaching at a Chinese university

This paper examines the stability and validity of a student evaluations of teaching (SET) instrument used by the administration at a university in the PR China. The SET scores for two semesters of courses taught by 435 teachers were collected. Total 388 teachers (170 males and 218 females) were also invited to fill out the 60‐item NEO Five‐Factor Inventory together with a demographic information questionnaire. The SET responses were found to have very high internal consistency and confirmatory factor analysis supported a one‐factor solution. The SET re‐test correlations were .62 for both the teachers who taught the same course (n = 234) and those who taught a different course in the second semester (n = 201). Linguistics teachers received higher SET scores than either social science or humanities or science and technology teachers. Student ratings were significantly related to Neuroticism and Extraversion. Regression results showed that the Big‐Five personality traits as a group explained only 2.6% of the total variance of student ratings and academic discipline explained 12.7% of the total variance of student ratings. Overall the stability and validity of SET was supported and future uses of SET scores in the PR China are discussed.     

Comparison of efficiency measures for academic interventions based on acquisition and maintenance

Previous research has demonstrated the importance of examining the instructional efficiency of academic interventions and has defined efficiency as the number of items learned per instructional minute. Maintenance of the skill is also an important instructional goal, however. Therefore, the current study compared efficiency metrics using initial learning and maintenance with 25 fourth‐grade students. Each student was taught the pronunciation and English translation of 12 words from the Esperanto international language with two instructional conditions (six words for each condition). The first condition was traditional drill (TD) rehearsal with all unknown words, and the second was incremental rehearsal (IR) with one unknown and eight known words. Results indicated that, although the IR condition led to significantly more words being retained, TD was significantly more efficient using initial learning. The two conditions were equally efficient, however, when maintenance data were used. Therefore, evaluating the efficiency of instructional interventions should consider maintenance data as well. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Mock Interdisciplinary Staffing: Educating for Interprofessional Collaboration

Training for interprofessional collaboration is important because professionals are increasingly required to work together in a coordinated and collaborative manner to meet the complex needs of clients. However, few published reports exist on interprofessional training for community counselors and marriage and family therapists. The authors discuss the use of a mock interdisciplinary staffing with students who are training to be counselors and marriage and family therapists. This method of instruction holds promise as an effective means of introducing students to a range of issues, including the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for interprofessional practice.     

Positive psychology goes to school: Are we there yet?

Implicit within a perspective of positive psychology is the assumption that environments can be promoted to foster individual strengths through a preventative focus and the development of positive institutions. Given that the development of positive institutions has direct implications for school psychology, this paper begins to draw attention to the potential of positive psychology within school systems. Throughout the paper, it is suggested that a focus on schools may serve as the nexus between the movement in positive psychology searching to promote positive human development and the institutions that could serve as the vehicle for this development. Historic and emerging trends are examined, with particular attention to how positive psychology could promote the development of positive schools (institutions) that foster success for all students. Specifically, the parallel histories of discontent with deficit‐oriented practice in the fields of mental health and school psychology are reviewed, and precursors to building and maintaining positive institutions that focus on working within the existing system to promote lasting change are explored. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 101–110, 2004.