Personality and Attitude Change in Counselor Trainees: An Evaluation

Subjects were 22 participants (14 males and 8 females) in a 38-week Guidance Institute designed to prepare secondary counselors to work with disadvantaged youth. Twenty students with similar characteristics enrolled in the regular counselor education program served as a control group. The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) and Semantic Differentials were administered to experimental and control subjects at the beginning and end of the Institute program. Results indicated that both groups made significant changes on the POI, with the amount and direction of change favoring the Institute subjects. The authors concluded that the Institute had a highly significant impact on the personal development of participants and that the Institute was more efficient than the regular program in eliciting such change.     

A study of the long-term stability of GRE general test scores

Some applicants for admission to graduate programs present Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test scores that are several years old. Due to different experiences over time, older GRE verbal, quantitative, and analytical scores may no longer accurately reflect the current capabilities of the applicants. To provide evidence regarding the long-term stability of GRE scores, test-retest correlations and average change (net gain) in test performance were analyzed for GRE General Test repeaters classified by time between test administrations in intervals ranging from less than 6 months to 10 years or more. Findings regarding average changes in verbal and quantitative test performance for long-term repeaters (with 5 years or more between tests), generally, and by graduate major area, sex, and ethnicity, appeared to be consistent with a differential growth hypothesis: Long-term repeaters generally, and in all of the subgroups, registered greater average (net) score gain on verbal tests than on quantitative tests and, for subgroups, the amount of gain tended to vary directly with initial means. A rationale is presented for a growth interpretation of the observed average gains in test performance. Implications for graduate school and GRE Program policies regarding the treatment of older test scores are considered.     

Students' note-taking behaviors and the efficacy of providing the instructor's notes for review

College students viewed a videotaped lecture with or without taking notes. Average performance between the two groups did not differ on an immediate test. The encoding effect of note taking was therefore unsupported. Two days later, note takers reviewed their notes while listeners reviewed the instructor's notes in preparation for the delayed exam. Subjects who reviewed the instructor's notes achieved significantly more, on factual items, than did subjects who reviewed their own relatively brief and unorganized notes. Thus, listening to a lecture and subsequently reviewing the instructor's notes prior to a delayed exam leads to relatively higher achievement than does the traditional method of taking and reviewing personal lecture notes.     

A more equitable account of the note-taking functions in learning from lecture and from text

Previous research investigating the encoding, encoding-plus-storage, and extermal-storage functions of note taking has failed to equate processing opportunities among the groups. The present studies did so by having the encoding group take notes on two occasions without review, the encoding-plus-storage group take notes one time and review notes the next, and the external-storage group twice review a set of borrowed notes. Three forms of note taking were used: conventional, and note taking on skeletal and matrix frameworks. In both Experiment 1, involving lecture learning, and Experiment 2, involving text learning, an advantage was found for the encoding-plus-storage function on tests involving factual-recall and recognition performance but not on tests measuring higher-order performance. With respect to note-taking forms, no advantage existed for any form when information was acquired from lecture. When text material was used there was some advantage for conventional notes and a clear advantage for not taking notes at all, but instead twice reading the material. These findings were explained relative to observed note-taking behaviors, the opportunity for review, and the processing demands proposed by the combination of reading and note taking, particularly when notes must be classified into an existing framework.     

Forming Identities in College: A Sociological Approach

Using data from 82 in-depth interviews with a randomly selected sample of college students, we explore how these students are forming felt identities in the following domains: intelligence and knowledgeability, occupation, and cosmopolitanism. We study the formation of students' identities by considering college an arena of social interaction in which the individual comes in contact with a multitude of actors in various settings, emphasizing that through these social interactions the identities of individuals are, in part, constituted. In using a symbolic interactionist approach in our research in conjunction with consideration of the social structural location of colleges in the wider society, we demonstrate the sorts of information and insights that can be gained from a nondevelopmental approach to the study of college student change.     

The Emergence of Chronic Peer Victimization in Boys' Play Groups

This investigation utilized a contrived play group procedure to examine the behavioral patterns leading to chronic victimization by peers in middle childhood. 30 play groups, each of which consisted of 6 unacquainted African-American 6-year-old or 8-year-old boys, met for 45-min sessions on 5 consecutive days. Play group interactions were videotaped and then examined. 13 boys who came to be chronically victimized by their play group peers were identified, along with matched nonvictim contrasts. Victims demonstrated lower rates of assertive behaviors, such as persuasion attempts and social conversation initiatives, and higher rates of nonassertive behaviors, such as submissions to peers' social initiatives, than contrasts. This nonassertive behavior pattern appears to have preceded the development of chronic victimization. Children who eventually emerged as victims were pervasively submissive, beginning in the initial 2 sessions. However, marked individual differences in victimization by peers did not become apparent until the final 3 sessions. These data provide evidence of strong linkages between submissive social behavior and the emergence of chronic victimization by peers.     

The power of the instructor in the solo experience: An empirical study and some non-empirical questions

The purpose of this study was to investigate participants' perceptions of an organized solo within a wilderness experience program and the influence that the instructors have on their perception of the solo. More specifically, this research project focused on the role of the instructor in the solo as perceived by the participants while still on solo, at the end of their wilderness experience, and three and a half months following the program. Qualitative data indicated that the instructors do have an influence on the participants' perception of their solo experience through the (a) preparation for, (b) facilitation during and (c) discussion after the solo. Recommendations to enhance the use of the wilderness solo include: (a) understand student expectations prior to the solo, (b) provide a clear rationale for the solo and associated activities, (c) implement an optional instructor/student visit during solo, (d) provide a one-on-one discussion with students prior to a group debrief after the solo, and (e) carefully consider the impact of the solo on program events and group dynamics that follow.     

The Administrators’ Roundtables: A Model for Increasing the Leadership of Elementary School Principals in Special Education

A MODEL PROGRAM, the Administrators’ Roundtables, was developed to increase the leadership of school principals in special education. The program was designed to meet the individual needs of participants as well as provide information regarding “best practices” in the field of special education. The one‐year program components include a series of monthly roundtable sessions where principals discuss relevant topics, distribution of professional materials and information, and participant site visits to model special education programs. An evaluation of the program is given based upon a questionnaire presented to the special education staff of participants before and after they became members of the Roundtable and an interview with a sample of the participants in the program. Results indicated that the Roundtables have had a positive impact on principals’ awareness and knowledge in the area of special education policies and practices with some secondary, indirect effects on programs for students with handicaps.