Suicide Intervention Training for Counselor Trainees: A Quasi‐Experimental Study on Skill Retention

The authors used a quasi‐experimental design to explore the effect of Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training on 126 counselor trainees. Results showed that after 3 months, trainees had retained improvements in measured response skills and self‐reported attitudes. The authors discuss the developmental benefits of incorporating similar training into counselor education. Implications for skill measurement are also considered.     

Rates of invention: international patent comparisons

The increased patenting activity of foreign nationals in the United States has been a source of recent concern, and the fear has been expressed that the US is becoming relatively less technologically inventive. This paper investigates some possible causes of the increased foreign patenting activity and also briefly examines the determinants of patent filings by a country's own residents. The countries covered include: Canada, France, West Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Based on data on patent applications filed and some preliminary regression analysis, the paper finds that the rising foreign patenting activity in the US probably does not reflect increased foreign inventiveness vis-à-vis the US. However, foreign innovativeness may be increasing relative to the US. Over the period 1963 – 1974, the domestic patent base, measured by the number of patent applications filed by nationals in their home countries, has shown little change in any country except for Japan. Rather, multiple patent applications and a greater propensity to patent abroad, induced by the possibilities of exporting, appear to be the sources of the increase in foreign patent applications in the US and also in Japan.     

Relationships between Hong Kong students’ perceptions of the learning environment and their learning patterns in post-secondary education

The present study aims to analyse the complex relationships between the relevant constructs of students’ demographic background, perceptions, learning patterns and (proxy measures of) learning outcomes in order to delineate the possible direct, indirect, or spurious effects among them. The analytical methodology is substantively framed against the studies of Richardson (British Journal of Educational Psychology 76:867–893, 2006, Higher Education 54:385–416, 2007) that utilised a regression-based methodology to infer the possible causal relationships among the relevant learning constructs. A composite research instrument, written in Chinese and derived from the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS) and the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), was used to collect students’ feedback on their perceptions of the learning environment and their learning patterns. Valid responses were obtained from 1,572 students studying at six institutions in the post-secondary education sector in Hong Kong, a new response-context for both the CEQ and the ILS. In adapting the research instruments to a new Chinese response-context, the findings are generally consistent with those reported in other published works (e.g. no relationship between students’ demographic background and their satisfaction with the programme, and a significant relationship between students’ exhibition of undirected learning patterns and low expected performance), but there are also some noteworthy discrepancies. The findings therefore buttress the confidence with which an ILS-based General Theoretical Model of student learning, adapted from Richardson (British Journal of Educational Psychology 76:867–893, 2006, Higher Education 54:385–416, 2007), may be used to conceptualise and interpret the dynamics of variation across different cultural response-contexts. While the CEQ provides some valuable complementary insights, it is an instrument that requires further development in the response-context of the present study.     

南京市基础教育设施空间结构及其演化

针对传统的基础教育设施研究偏重数量和静态视角的现状,以2006-2015年南京市8区基础教育设施为研究对象,采用平均最邻近距离法分析空间集聚性、采用核密度法分析空间热点演化、采用社会网络分析方法与拟合模型探讨教育设施分布及联系网络特征,采用重心椭圆方法分析教育质量的变化。结果表明：幼儿园和小学空间集聚性增强,初中和高中则减弱,除初中外平均邻近距离均下降;除高中外各设施高密度区域范围显著扩大,小学大致呈单核结构扩张,初中呈双核向三核转变的趋势,幼儿园在江宁区形成新极核;名校设立分校的教育联系网络发展的空间差异总体呈先升后降趋势,优质教育设施区位选择受行政界线制约的程度先增后减;教育质量的重心总体先向北后向西移动,高质区域总体呈扩大趋势,但主要仍集中于鼓楼区。基于以上研究结论,提出完善教育设施规划的建议。     

BAYESIAN m‐GROUP REGRESSION APPLIED IN A COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAM

The purpose of the study was to compare classical multiple regression with Bayesian m‐group regression, complete with cross‐validation of both methods. The context of the study was to predict first‐quarter grade point average in various curricula in a comprehensive community college for those students who had completed developmental studies programs. The major findings were: (1) informal counselor prediction was the largest contributor to the final regression models, and (2) no difference was found between classical multiple regression and Bayesian m‐group regression.     

Conceptual and methodological approaches to the study of leadership

Of the four major approaches to the study of leadership, the functional approach appears to have the most promise for researchers interested in the communication behavior of small groups.     

Film Production

MASTERS OF LIGHT: CONVERSATIONS WITH CONTEMPORARY CINEMATOGRAPHERS edited by Dennis Schaefer and Larry Salvato (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984---$27.50 hardcover)     

Ideology & the social construction of meaning: A communication perspective

This paper examines the role of ideology in the social construction of meaning. It is argued that while interpretive philosophical frameworks have attributed a constitutive function to the role of communication in meaning construction, little attention has been paid to the ways in which social relations of power mediate in this process of meaning creation. Ideology, however, is a useful heuristic concept which provides a way of contextualizing the communication process within such power relations. It is argued that communication involves not only the process of creating meaning, but is also intrinsic to the means by which relations of domination are produced and reproduced. The notion of ideology is presented as the conceptual link between communication and power.