Fidelity of Problem Solving in Everyday Practice: Typical Training May Miss the Mark

Social skills training interventions have been used extensively for remediating interpersonal deficits of children and adolescents. These interventions represent an essential component of school curricula for at-risk and handicapped students, and have been incorporated into treatment programs for youngsters receiving services in psychiatric hospitals or clinics, residential facilities, and correctional institutions. As the degree of specialized knowledge necessary to effectively implement social skills training programs increases, the need for consultation services becomes more acute. Specific functional relationships among child characteristics, target behaviors, and interventions, for instance, must be analyzed with respect to ecological parameters and constraints. In this article, I discuss the use of consultation for conceptualizing and implementing social skills training with youngsters. Integrating consultation into social skills training requires developing a dynamic and collaborative relationship with practitioners. Current issues and misconceptions pertinent to social skills training are proffered in order to enhance consultant's role as problem solver and to ensure treatment integrity. This article also delineates the nexus among assessment information, target behavior selection, and intervention factors that are considered essential for providing comprehensive and effective social skills training.     

The CoVis Project: Building a Large-Scale Science Education Testbed*

This paper describes the construction and research program of the Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) Project, a testbed for exploring science education reform with telecommunications technology. The CoVis testbed is contrasted with other forms of educational research in an “ecology of paradigms,” which argues that testbeds are in fact a new setting for research with different requirements and challenges for the researcher. Two extended examples of telecommunications research are provided as examples of the kind of research that testbeds are well suited to explore. The first example is the evolution of videoconferencing in the CoVis testbed. The second example is the design and development of a networked groupware application called the Collaboratory Notebook.     

Challenges and transformations: Counselling in a multicultural context

During the last two decades counselling in a multicultural context has been on the increase with more and more training programmes now including issues of race, culture and ethnicity. This has led to numerous approaches, for example transcultural, inter-cultural, cross-cultural, multicultural, Afro-centric, anti-racist and black feminist, which define counselling with minority groups. Although many of these approaches have a sound theoretical base, they nevertheless remain marginal in terms of convincing the minority communities of their value and effectiveness. This is clearly seen in the pre-mature termination and lack of participation by minorities in counselling and therapy. The chief criticism against counselling throughout this period is that, it has remained essentially, Eurocentric, ethnocentric and individualistic. Culture-sensitive counsellors and counselling within a "culture fit" model have been suggested as a way of making the process more appropriate to a diversity of cultures. Furthermore, this has led to some practitioners strongly advocating the inclusion of socio-economic and political constructs as part of a broader definition of multicultural counselling. For example, the issues of power and influence, cultural hegemony, racism and masculinities are becoming key schemas in cross cultural counselling practices. The challenge for multicultural counselling, in the next decade, would be to include traditional healing practices as part of its discourse, if it is to encourage the active participation of ethnicminorities. This paper is an attempt to explore some of these challenges and highlight some of the transformations that are taking place within multicultural counselling. Finally, through a discussion of a case vignette, the paper illustrates the need to accommodate traditional healing methods in counselling the culturally diverse client.     

Internationalizing Reference Education

Reference instruction should also involve preparing library and information science students for working with international students. There are numerous options for embedding such content into courses. In addition, professional organizations offers students with many opportunities to launch their international experiences.     

不走寻常路，理科生PK文科类重点大学

镜头闪回 想去北京上大学,而且一定要上一所重点大学,一直就是我的心愿。为什么呢？原因其实很简单：北京是首都嘛,从小就在课本和电视里了解了很多。后来在一个假期里,爸爸还带我去玩了一趟。什么颐和园、故宫博物馆,北京就是北京,那才叫一个恢宏大气。而且现在考到北京去念书,正好能赶上2008年奥运会。这个机会可是千载难逢啊!     

陌生的父亲

这位海军陆战队员赶到医院时,期盼儿子归来的垂危老人已神智不清。为了给予老人最温暖的临终关怀,海军陆战队员寸步不离地陪伴着老人度过了漫长而安详的一夜。可是,送走老人后他却问护士:"那个男人是谁?"     

Incorporating Uncertainty Into Parallel Analysis for Choosing the Number of Factors via Bayesian Methods

A number of psychometricians have suggested that parallel analysis (PA) tends to yield more accurate results in determining the number of factors in comparison with other statistical methods. Nevertheless, all too often PA can suggest an incorrect number of factors, particularly in statistically unfavorable conditions (e.g., small sample sizes and low factor loadings). Because of this, researchers have recommended using multiple methods to make judgments about the number of factors to extract. Implicit in this recommendation is that, when the number of factors is chosen based on PA, uncertainty nevertheless exists. We propose a Bayesian parallel analysis (B-PA) method to incorporate the uncertainty with decisions about the number of factors. B-PA yields a probability distribution for the various possible numbers of factors. We implement and compare B-PA with a frequentist approach, revised parallel analysis (R-PA), in the contexts of real and simulated data. Results show that B-PA provides relevant information regarding the uncertainty in determining the number of factors, particularly under conditions with small sample sizes, low factor loadings, and less distinguishable factors. Even if the indicated number of factors with the highest probability is incorrect, B-PA can show a sizable probability of retaining the correct number of factors. Interestingly, when the mode of the distribution of the probabilities associated with different numbers of factors was treated as the number of factors to retain, B-PA was somewhat more accurate than R-PA in a majority of the conditions.     

Gender and IT in the Household: Evolving Patterns of Internet Use in the United States

Information technology (IT)—computers and related technologies—is the latest technology to enter the household. Like other technologies, gender is a major factor in its adoption and use as well as its perceived usefulness. Unlike prior household technologies, the computer's entry into the household has followed a different pattern. Early statistics revealed a vast gender divide, with men using computers and related technologies much more in the household. More recent statistics show a narrowing of the divide, perhaps even a reversal, particularly in the United States, with women outnumbering men in the access to and use of the Internet. In this article, the role of gender and its relationship with Internet use in the home are reviewed. In addition to overall adoption and access, the review focuses on specific Internet applications and examines the factors that contribute to gender differences in adoption and use of computers and Internet applications in the home.