Be My Guest: A Survey of Mass Communication Students' Perception of Guest Speakers

The use of guest speakers as a pedagogical technique across disciplines at the college level is hardly novel. However, empirical assessment of journalism and mass communication students' perceptions of this practice has not previously been conducted. To fill this gap, this article presents results from an online survey specifically administered to such students (N = 545) at a large public research university and a small liberal arts college. Results of statistical significance indicate that inviting a guest speaker is most valuable to students when the speaker comes from the industry and interacts face-to-face with the audience through personal examples and career tips rather than a formal slide-based lecture. Finally, this article contributes to and expands upon previous literature by offering a set of recommendations for the use of guest speakers in journalism and mass communication curriculum.     

Using Personal Growth Groups in Multicultural Counseling Courses to Foster Students' Ethnic Identity Development

This study was designed to examine the relationship between personal growth group (PGG) experiences in multicultural counseling courses and counseling students' ethnic identity development. Differences in ethnic identity development were compared between counseling students who participated in a PGG experience as part of a multicultural counseling course and those who did not. Group session impacts were also examined. Results indicated that counseling students who participated in PGGs as part of a multicultural counseling course experienced significantly greater ethnic identity development than did counseling students not participating in such groups. Recommendations for further research are provided.     

Beginning Literacy in Two Languages

This article is based on the Third Ruth Wong Memorial Lecture delivered at the National University of Singapore, 14 March 1986.     

Potential school violence: Relationship between teacher anxiety and warning‐sign identification

This study examined the relationship between teacher anxiety and their identification of warning signs of student violence. Fifty‐six public school teachers, 22 male and 34 female, between the ages of 23 and 60 participated. Participants identified warning signs in five fictional student case files created for this study and completed the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory and a demographic survey. The case files included positive and negative information, and high‐ and low‐severity warning signs. Neither state (r = .02) nor trait (r = .04) anxiety was significantly correlated with high‐severity warning‐signs identification. Low‐severity warning‐signs identification was positively correlated with state anxiety (r = .28, p < .05) but not trait anxiety (r = .18, p > .05). False positive identification was not significantly related to state anxiety (r = .07) or trait anxiety (r = .06). The findings indicate that teachers who experience higher levels of state anxiety when confronted with warning signs of potential violence are better able to identify low‐severity warning signs than do their less anxious counterparts, without over‐identifying nonthreatening information as potential warning signs. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 623–635, 2005.     

Natural hazard preparedness in an Auckland community: child and community perceptions

Community engagement in natural hazard preparedness is crucial to ensure sustainable initiatives. Children are important members of communities, and can actively contribute to community preparedness. This article presents research undertaken with 11- to 12-year-old students from a school in Auckland, New Zealand, and leaders associated with the school community regarding their perceptions of the role of schools, communities and children in natural hazard preparedness. The findings show that the students believe they can be effective in promoting preparedness in their school, homes and community, and act as leaders in this capacity. Community leaders stated that preparedness actions should be culturally relevant, community initiated and owned and inclusive of child perspectives. From the combined perspectives of students and community leaders, this work concludes that emergency management must engage in culturally responsive ways with Māori and Pacific communities to enable community preparedness initiatives that are tailored to the cultural values and practices of communities most at risk from natural hazards. Further, it concludes that children have an important voice in community preparedness, which could be encouraged through school and community initiatives.     

Predicting long-term outcomes for women sexually abused in childhood: contribution of abuse severity versus family environment

OBJECTIVE: Child sexual abuse (CSA) has been associated with adverse adult psychosocial outcomes, although some reports describe minimal long-term effects. The search for explanations for the heterogeneous outcomes in women with CSA has led to an examination of a range of CSA-related factors, from the severity of individual CSA incidents to the childhood family environment. This study compares three factors for predicting adult outcomes: a multidimensional CSA Severity Scale, the presence or absence of CSA, and family environment. METHODS: The effect of CSA on adult outcomes was examined among 290 community-dwelling women raised in intact families. Standardized measures and a focused interview were used to collect data, with siblings as collateral informants. RESULTS: Comparison of a multidimensional CSA Severity Scale to a dichotomous measure of the presence or absence of CSA showed that the Severity Scale did not have greater predictive value for adult outcomes than the dichotomous measure, nor was it as parsimonious. Childhood family environment scales added significantly to the predictive ability of the dichotomous measure. CONCLUSION: The specific characteristics of a CSA experience may be less important than the occurrence of CSA and the family environment of women for predicting long-term outcomes.     

Persistence versus withdrawal from the college classroom: A test of four theoretically derived propositions

The purpose of this study was to test the generalizability of results obtained in laboratory research in the area of persistence behavior of students who drop college courses. Four hypotheses that included predictions concerning which students were most likely to drop courses, which courses were most likely to be dropped, and at what point in the semester students were most likely to drop courses were formulated from the results of laboratory research. None of the hypotheses were adequately supported by the data, suggesting that the results of laboratory research in this area are not readily transferable to college course-dropping behavior, at least without taking into account more relevant situational and personal variables.     

Generating enthusiasm for undergraduate research by teaching futures-based problem-solving skills

This model is intended to generate enthusiasm for research that goes beyond the experience of the typical college “term-paper.” Framed in the context of introductory lectures on the basics of social science research within the global perspective of challenges futurists predict for the early years of the millennium, undergraduates are instructed to think in terms of problems related to the future world of criminal justice and sociology and asked later to submit and orally defend formal research proposals. Completed proposals may serve as the impetus for further research, or in exceptional cases may be further developed for publication or presentation.