The Financial Evaluation of Work‐Study Alternatives Facing School‐Leavers

Internship programs, whereby students are employed on a full‐time basis while studying part‐time for a degree, are increasingly popular. This paper discusses an analytical framework which is helpful in evaluating, from the student's perspective, alternative internship programs. The methodology is illustrated by a detailed analysis of two internship programs currently available in N.S.W. Other options such as full‐time study, with and without part‐time employment, are also analysed. Comparison of the internships and other options reveal substantial differences in life‐time earnings, rates of renumeration and implicit trade‐offs between income and leisure. Non‐monetary differences may also be substantial.     

Making values education everyone's business

Adults are typically required to make values‐based decisions multiple times each day.Why, then, should a discussion of values not be explicit across the college curriculum and intentionally integrated into the cocurriculum? The authors describe a place where the work of values education is widely shared.     

The Role of Study Habits in Foreign Language Courses

The purpose of this study was to determine which study habits distinguish successful from unsuccessful foreign language learners. Participants were 219 college students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, enrolled in either Spanish, French, German or Japanese classes. A canonical discriminant analysis (F [6, 117], p < 0.0001; canonical R = 0.92) revealed that, compared to their high-performing counterparts, students with the lowest levels of foreign language performance tended to report that: (a) they frequently include a lot of irrelevant or unimportant information in their notes; (b) when they have difficulty with their assignments, they do not seek help from their instructor; (c) they put their lecture notes away after taking the test and never consult them again; (d) they have to be in the mood before attempting to study; (e) they have a tendency to doodle or to daydream when they are trying to study; and (f) they do not look up in a dictionary the meanings of words that they do not understand. Implications are discussed.     

Effects of Applying Different Time Limits to a Proposed GRE Writing Test

In order to determine the role of time limits on both test performance and test validity, we asked approximately 300 volunteers–prospective graduate students–to each write two essays–one in a 40-minute time period and the other in 60 minutes. Analyses revealed that, on average, test performance was significantly better when examinees were given 60 minutes instead of 40. However, there was no interaction between test-taking style (fast vs. slow) and time limits. 'That is', examinees who described themselves as slow writers/test takers did not benefit any more (or any less) from generous time limits than did their quicker counterparts. In addition, there was no detectable effect of different time limits on the meaning of essay scores, as suggested by their relationship to several nontest indicators of writing ability.     

Instructing adolescents with learning disabilities: converting a meta-analysis to practice

A previous meta-analysis indicated that eight instructional factors--Questioning, Sequencing and Segmentation, Skill Modeling, Organization and Explicit Practice, Small-Group Setting, Indirect Teacher Activities (e.g., homework), Technology, and Scaffolding-captured the majority of successful intervention programs for adolescents with learning disabilities (LD). Most important was the Organization/Explicit factor, which contributed significant variance (16%) to effect size. This factor included two important instructional components: advance organization and explicit practice. In this article, we convert these findings into practical guidelines to direct instructional practice.     

The expert witness in child abuse and neglect: An interdisciplinary process

The legal system is an important part of a society's response to child abuse and child neglect. Courts need to be guided in their deliberations by experts from many different professions. Consultation and in-court expert testimony is necessary from medicine, psychology, psychiatry, social work and other professions both to prove child abuse and neglect and establish the power of the court to act on behalf of a child but also to guide the court in the intervention strategy most suited to the needs of the child and his family. Non-lawyers often feel uncomfortable in the legal setting. The adversary process is foreign to their training and professional experience. Collaboration with a lawyer greatly improves their effectiveness in court. Lawyers, on the other hand, need to make maximum use of medical and social-psychological experts in the court process in the interests of their clients; but to do so lawyers need a basic understanding of the other professions. With an emphasis on a process of mutual education, the paper presents a framework for collaboration between lawyers and expert witnesses in child abuse and neglect cases. “Expert witness” is defined; informal consultation is encouraged; suggestions for selecting a collaborator are made; initial contracts between lawyer and expert, case conferencing and preparation for trial are discussed; specific advice on direct and cross examination is provided.