PREDICTING GRADUATION WITHDRAWAL AND FAILURE IN COLLEGE BY MULTIPLE DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS

An illustration of using multiple discriminant analysis and nonintellective data in predicting graduation, withdrawal and failure in a college of liberal arts. The nonintellective factors are qualitative content categories derived from candidates' personal application statements. Procedures are described for comparing the effectiveness of the nonintellective data with that of intellective data in differentiating among the three criterion groups and on accuracy of predicted group membership.     

Computer-Based Accountability: Implications for Training

Since the call for professional accountability in the early 1970s, counselors and counselor educators have attempted to assess counseling effectiveness, to upgrade programs as a result of assessments, and to communicate results of program assessment and change to their publics. Until recently, their efforts have been impeded by the interpersonal nature of counseling, insufficient training in research and evaluation, and available low-cost computer technology. This article addresses each of the impediments with the focus on how present computer technology, specifically computer-assisted systems, can be used to help counselors and counselor educators ethically input, store, and retrieve pertinent client and program data—data that can be used to achieve program evaluation and lead to accountable program development. The Counselor Accountability System is presented as an example of an easy-to-use computer program designed to facilitate counselor accountability.     

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A TEST OF INFORMATION STORAGE DURING READING1

Previous research has suggested potential advantages for a new type of item for measuring comprehension in reading and listening. The test items are called “chunked” and consist of groups of meaningfully related words in which certain groups have been changed in meaning from the original passage. A chunked type of test, designed to indicate information stored during reading, was developed and analyzed in two studies. The results of Study 1, indicated that the constructed test items were successful in differentiating between readers and nonreaders of the newly composed reading passages. “Using the results of Study I, test items were revised and two forms of a test were produced, complete with standardized instructions. The major purpose of Study 2 was to evaluate the extent to which the revised and standardization test could discriminate between a group of individuals who took the test in its standard form and another group which was given the same amount of time to work on the test items but was not given the benefit of reading the passages. The major result in Study 2 was that individuals who had not read the passages experienced a 75% decrement in their performance on Form A of the Chunked Reading Test as compared to individuals who had read the passages, and for Form B, nonreaders experienced a 78% decrement. From these re- sults, it was concluded that the Chunked Reading Test is a valid test of information storage during reading in terms of its utility in measuring the differences in information stored between readers and nonreaders of passages, and that it offers many advantages over the traditional standardized reading tests.     

The Impact of Client Suicide in Counselor Training: Implications for Counselor Education and Supervision

The impact of client suicide on student counselors has potentially severe and long-term consequences. This article presents recommendations for addressing the needs of students and discusses implications for counselor education.     

Relationship and Growth Theories and Agency Counseling

In general, counselor educators have borrowed heavily from psychotherapeutic theories in conceptualizing service delivery models. These models have in common an assumption that the goal of counseling is the personal growth and development of the client that results from the relationship between the participants in the helping process. The adoption of psychotherapeutic and growth experience models by counselor educators leads to at least two problems for counselors who work in agency settings: (1) the high turnover, transitory nature of the caseload does not lend itself to the type of interactions where relationships can be central to the goals of counseling. And (2) the problems presented by the majority of agency clients are not amenable to solution through the self-exploration methods of the psychotherapeutic and growth experience models because of various constraints of agency practice.