Understanding Clients and Their Environments: A Simulation

Counselors must be made fully aware of the impact of environmental and societal forces on their clients. Counselor education students need knowledge and skill to attend to the pressures and problems of minority groups. The simulation method described in this article encourages students to experience powerlessness, isolation, and few if any options in order to develop a clearer understanding of their clients and environments. The authors discuss applicability of the simulation beyond counselor education programs.     

Book Reviews

Book Reviews in This Article: Mastering Statistics Second Edition. From Cooperation to Coordination. Implications of New Technology for the School Curriculum.     

TECHNICAL GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING COMPUTERIZED ADAPTIVE TESTS

Guidelines are proposed for evaluating a computerized adaptive test. Topics include dimensionality, measurement error, validity, estimation of item parameters, item pool characteristics and human factors. Equating CAT and conventional tests is considered and matters of equity are addressed.     

Knowledge and Truth in Religious Education

It is reasonable to expect, with regard to any traditional academic subject, that it should be capable of being made good sense of as a rational form of knowledge or enquiry focused upon the discernment of truths of one sort or another concerning the world or human affairs. One curriculum area which has generally been held to be problematic in this respect, for a mixture of epistemological, social, ethical and pedagogical reasons, is that of religious education. In the first place, then, this paper is concerned to expose some of the confusions which have been allowed to obscure the nature of religious enquiry as a viable rational enterprise, Second, however, the paper also attempts to develop a coherent und workable account of the nature and operations of knowledge and truth in religious enquiry.     

Accountable Supervision Through Systematic Data Collection: Using Single-Case Designs

Single-case designs rarely appear in the counseling supervision literature. The authors illustrate and provide a rationale for their use as a supplement to rating scales and speculate on the reasons for their infrequent use.     

The Disciplines and Discipline of Educational Research

This paper starts from the point in the early 1970s at which educational theory and research was temporarily structured under the 'foundation' disciplines of psychology, sociology, philosophy and history of education. It observes the way the intellectual resources of educational research have become enlarged and enriched and these disciplines themselves fragmented and hybridised to a degree that prompts talk not just of interdisciplinarity but of 'postdisciplinarity'. The paper argues, however, that without discipline, in the sense of a shared language, a rule governed structure of enquiry—something 'systematic'—we lose the conditions that make a community of arguers possible. Further, we lose the basis for the special claim which research might otherwise make on our attention and on our belief.     

'Kids from the Local School? Tele-pedagogy and the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge

Schools and teachers are increasingly confronted by, and engaging, the challenge of techno-popular culture and postmodernity more generally. This paper addresses one manifestation of the postmodern condition in contemporary education and schooling: the emergence of a distinctively new visual and performative sensibility in educational practice, and a new articulation with media practice and popular culture. This is addressed here specifically through the phenomenon of the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge (REC), a unique and somewhat controversial youth- and school-cultural event incorporating popular music and creative-performing arts, and involving large numbers of schools and students. The particular focus here is the televisual form of the REC. The key concept introduced is the notion of 'tele-pedagogy', drawn from recent debates in media education, cultural studies and poststructuralist theory and philosophy.     

Counselor Supervision as a Function of Trainee Experience: Analysis of Specific Behaviors

Fifty-one supervisees varying in both experience and training (a) judged 44 specific supervisor behaviors for the frequency that they were implemented in supervision and (b) judged supervision effectiveness, which was assessed on five separate scales. Factor analysis of the supervisor behaviors revealed four factors: Evaluative Support, Time/Structure, Method of Supervision, and Rapport. Results from multivariate analysis of variance showed that one factor, Method of Supervision, was statistically significant with beginning trainees emphasizing more the mechanics and task of supervision. Other trends showed that experienced supervisees entertained a less structured interaction with supervisors that was more supportive and considered more effective. Analysis of specific supervisor behaviors gave support to the notion that supervision over time can be conceptualized as a developmental process.