Thirty Schools Tell Their Story,adventure in American Education,Volume V. Harper and Brothers,New York, 1943. $4.00. 802 pp

Communication: Communication, the Miracle of Shared Living by Dora V. Smith. The Macmillan Company. 105 pp. $2.50.

Education: Administration In Profile For School Executives by Harlan L. Hagman and Alfred Schwartz. Harper &; Brothers. 308 pp. $3.50.

Basal Reading Instruction by Gerald A. Yoakam. McGraw-Hill Book Company. 357 pp. $4.50.

Social Studies: A Half Century of International Problems by F. R. Coudert, Columbia University Press, 352 pp., $4.00.

Approaches to an Understanding of World Affairs. Howard R. Anderson, editor. The National Council for the Social Studies, 1954. 478 pp. $3.50 paper, $4.00 cloth.

Teaching World Understanding, edited by Ralph G. Preston. Prentice-Hall, 207 pp. $3.95.

Travel: Around India by John Seymour. John Day Company, 310 pp. $4.95.

Dependent Baggage—Destination Geamany by Marie Di Mario Warm. The Macmillan Company, New York, N.Y. 245 pp. $3.50.     

A cross-cultural comparison of numeracy skills using a written and an interactive arithmetic test

This study applied two arithmetic tests, one written and one one computer-based interactive, to samples of primary school children from two populations, one suburban non-Aboriginal and one rural Aboriginal. The results from the written test were significantly (p?&;lt;?0.001) better for the non-Aboriginal children than for the Aboriginal children. This was not the case with the results from the computer-based interactive test. The study used Rasch-based methodology to reduce the results from the two tests to a common scale, to ascertain whether the Aboriginal children performed better (in relation to the non-Aboriginal children) in the computer-based than in the written test. The study found that this was the case, and concluded that the results from the computer-based test exhibited less cultural bias against the Aboriginal children than the written test.     

EDUCATION AND ATTITUDES TOWARD TRAINING AND PROFESSIONALISM AMONG PRACTITIONERS IN THE FIELD OF AGING

This study is based on questionnaire responses of practitioners in agencies in a nine‐county area in Ohio. Data indicate that existing levels of specialized gerontological education are low, but that practitioners tend to be supportive of further training and increased professionalism. Educators should therefore find practitioners receptive to efforts to increase gerontological knowledge and professionalism. There is some contradictory evidence, however, and the question of the desirability of increased professionalism is raised.

This paper is based on data compiled as part of a wider study on aspects of the labor force in the field of aging. The original study was funded by the Ohio Commission on Aging through a grant to the Scripps Foundation Gerontology Center, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

The author thanks Mildred M. Seltzer for her helpful comments.     

Evaluation of retirement planning programs: A qualitative analysis of methodologies and efficacy

ABSTRACT

The objective of this integrative literature review was to evaluate the quality of retirement planning programs described in the extant literature. This was accomplished through a qualitative analysis of methodological and efficacy criteria as described by Flay et al. (2005), Kazdin (2010, 2011 and Murta (2005). Several databases were consulted in searching for retirement program articles including: Academic Search Premier, Medline, PsycInfo, and Web of Science, among others. Retirement planning intervention articles published in English, Portuguese, and Spanish were considered, with a focus on their evaluation methods and results. Eleven studies were identified that described the procedures for both program implementation and intervention evaluation. Results revealed methodological shortcomings in the papers reviewed, with concerns being related to a lack of experimental or quasiexperimental approaches, a failure to use previously validated measurement instruments and longitudinal assessments, and insufficiently robust data analysis procedures. That said, however, there was evidence from multiple investigations that the intervention programs examined led to increases in knowledge, positive changes in attitudes linked to retirement, and an increase in retirement-linked planning and preparation behaviors. Identification of strengths and weaknesses in the methods used and efficacy of these interventions could facilitate the construction of a research agenda aimed at promoting more favorable research designs. Use of more rigorous designs would stand to improve the internal validity of these retirement programs and, consequently, progress in this field.