Long-term unemployment: Effects and counseling interventions

The authors provide an overview of the psychosocial impact of unemployment. Case studies, based on interviews with the long-term unemployed during 1988 and 1989 are presented to highlight the Personal Employment Identity Model. The PEIM is a service delivery paradigm designed to assist counselors when working with the unemployed. It utilizes an individuals's ego identity in relation to their self identification with their previous work role to recommend interventions. Interventions will vary according to the inherent and expressed needs of the individual on the continuum of the Personal Employment Identity Model.     

Special needs of the deaf dying patient

Hospice and hospital personnel who give care to dying patients should be prepared for situations in which a client or family member is hearing impaired. What are the specific concerns of a hearing impaired client? How are needs for meaningful conversation and expression of feelings compromised by the care giver's awkwardness? This article provides practical suggestions for meeting needs of hearing impaired clients with serious illnesses.     

Map Perspective and the Learning of Text

In two studies, undergraduates learned a map of the city of Rome in either a flat survey map or a one-point perspective format. The perspective map lead to greater feature recall in the first study and to better memory for a related text when features were correctly located in the second study. Both studies suggest that map scanning patterns may differ depending on the learner′s point of view.     

Processing procedural documents: A cognitive model for following written directions

This paper reviews empirical literature on how people use documents to perform tasks. We examine studies that have been published under the topics of: following written directions, reading maps, following instructions, using job performance aids, and processing procedural texts. Documents that contain a procedure, such as a set of directions, require transformation of information. Such transformation frequently requires converting a procedure represented verbally in a text into a procedure represented behaviorally in a performance. To accomplish this transformation, we propose that students must: (a) form a conceptual model of the performance; (b) encode procedures from the document; (c) engage in self-testing; and (d) conduct self-corrections to repair mistakes. We further propose that these operations are performed most efficiently with distinctive information resources. An overview of the task is likely to be most effective in facilitating conceptual model formation. Procedural information that emphasizes temporal characteristics of the performance will facilitate the encoding of procedures. A representation of the outcome (usually graphic) improves self-testing, and the comparison of the outcome with progress in the workspace leads to most effective self-correction. This process-resource interaction minimizes the number and complexity of transformations required to process procedural documents.     

Academic behavior and grades of mainstreamed students with mild disabilities.

This study examined the relationship between the classroom behaviors and final grades of mainstreamed students with mild disabilities in three urban schools in Grades 3-9. Significant correlations were found for all academic behaviors except attendance and homework at the elementary level and written work at the junior high level. In addition, significant differences in reading scores were found between mainstreamed and regular elementary school students. Findings indicate that mainstreamed students with mild disabilities may participate in academic lessons as well or nearly as well as their peers without disabilities.     

Learning To Read Each Other: Black Female Graduate Students Share Their Experiences at a White Research I Institution

This paper uses Black Feminist Thought to explain the lived experiences of three Black female graduate students at a White Research I institution. Through mentoring from Black female professors, the students received instrumental and psychosocial support that helped them to navigate through their graduate level work. Common themes of identity, community service missions, and empowerment provides a thread that ties the student’s narratives together. We close by offering some suggestions for further research on the Black graduate experience and mentoring Black graduate students. Meca R. Williams, Denise N. Brewley, R. Judith Reed and Dorothy Y. White are affiliated with University of Georgia. Rachel T. Davis-Haley is affiliated with University of New Orleans.     

Barriers that lead students to take television-based college courses

Conclusions Time rather than distance seems to be the major constraint facing college students who choose to enroll in television-based courses. Students find that their greatest challenge is how to manage their time in view of competing demands from jobs, families, and other responsibilities. Computer-based interaction with faculty seems to be a feasible approach to providing increased communication between faculty and students enrolled in telecourses. Telecourse students, for the most part, are favorably disposed toward telecourses that would require them to use computers in their homes. They are less inclined to take courses that require the use of computers in the work place, and would resist courses that require them to come to campus or learning centers to use computers, especially if those computers were high-powered workstations. Note:Copies of the full report of this study may be obtained free of charge by writing to: The Annenberg/CPB Project (A), 901 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004.     

Factors of Programme Choice in Public Television: a national survey

The differing audience objectives of public and commercial television in the United States pose significant issues relative to how programmes are chosen for broadcast. Factors which influence the selection of programmes on public television (the chief broadcast outlet of educational programmes in America) warrant the scrutiny of media scholars, for such factors may prove influential in determining the nature of broadcast educational programmes. A survey of US public television programmers, conducted to examine factors perceived as important in making programme decisions, identified 11 factors, but about 70% of the total variance was explained by the first five factors: (1) audience measures, (2) personal feedback, (3) programme strategy, (4) station resources and (5) intuition. The audience measure factor explained the largest proportion of the variance (30%). Several factors were comparable with those used in an earlier study of commercial TV programme decision‐making. The findings suggest that perhaps internal constraints (station budget) cause public and commercial programmers to be similar in their perceptions about factors regarded as influential in programme selection