The Value of Mentoring

Mentoring involves the use of an experienced individual to teach and train someone with less knowledge in a given area. Through individualized attention the mentor/teacher transfers needed information, feedback, and encouragement to the protegé/learner. The success of such a program depends heavily on the investment of effort by the mentor. Although benefits for the protegé are typically easily discerned and have been well documented in the past, the factors affecting motivation for the mentor have been less well defined. Therefore, after a discussion of the basic mentoring process and a summary of the protegé and organizational benefits, the major focus of our paper is directed to the extrinsic and intrinsic rewards attained by those who participate as mentors and to the establishment of guidelines that help to maximize the value for all involved.     

Learning and Metamemory Failures Despite Extensive Experience

A number of studies has shown excellent recognition memory for pictures when participants are asked to remember what has been presented. This study explored unpractised memory for the English 5 note-an everyday item containing a great deal of pictorial information. Forty participants were asked to study a copy of the etching of the Rocket locomotive from the reverse side of the note. Of the participants 75% claimed never to have seen the image before, and were confident in their judgements. Further, participants were confident that experimenter claims about bank-note details were wrong. Results point to both dramatic memory failure, and to misrepresentations in memory. They provide a vivid demonstration of the failure of passive learning to encode information reliably, and the need for active learner engagement for effective recall.     

Trends in spending on training: An analysis of the 1982 through 2008 Training Annual Industry Reports

This article explores long‐term trends in spending using data compiled from the Training magazine Annual Industry Survey from 1982 through 2008. It builds on literature that proposes spending on training is an investment that yields benefits—and that offers methods for demonstrating it. After adjusting for inflation, aggregate spending on training rose 1.5% between 1986 and 2008. Inflation‐adjusted spending on training staff fell 14%, although inflation‐adjusted spending on outside products and services increased 237%. Spending on training fell in all but two job categories. Findings support the belief that spending on training is falling but suggest that this is a sustained and systemic drop rather than a temporary response to an economic crisis. Also, expenditures on internal training resources have fallen, while spending on external resources has risen. A key limitation of this study is that it relies solely on data from the Training Annual Industry Survey.     

Nietzsche,Tragedy, and Liberal Moral Psychology

Abstract

This essay discusses Nietzsche's tragic moral psychology and its significance for liberal political philosophy. In the essay, I sketch out what I view to be the basic features of Nietzsche's tragic psychology, which is strongly opposed to the Socratic and Stoic traditions, and I show how this perspective can be distinguished from the moral psychology that informs liberalism's position on issues such as personhood and political history. I conclude with a few suggestions for viewing Nietzsche's thought as a necessary corrective to a certain dogmatism that still inhabits liberal theory, in this way enabling liberal thought to conceptualise human nature and the human good in more creative and complex ways.