A Counselor Education Program for Intern Physicians

In recent years it has been estimated that from 30 percent to 50 percent of the medical complaints brought to the family or general practice physician are functional in nature and may be psychosocial in origin (Harmon, Masuda & Holmes 1970). While chemotherapy may be appropriate for the patient with acute situational anxiety and psychiatric consultation may be appropriate for the severely neurotic or psychotic patient, the family practice physician has few remedies for the patient with chronic aches and pains, housewife syndrome, middle-age depression, businessman's fatigue, and a host of other quasimedical complaints.     

The ELDERHOSTEL philosophy

This paper describes the philosophy of ELDERHOSTEL, an organization which began in 1975 with five colleges in New Hampshire offering a total of 15 weeks of higher education programs for persons 60 years of age and older. By the summer of 1979, more than 500 weeks of ELDERHOSTEL programs were being offered at 235 college and university campuses in 37 states.Martin P. Knowlton is Director of the New England Center for Social Invention and a founder of ELDERHOSTEL.     

Bias in content validity on the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts for White and Mexican-American children

Item bias on Forms A and B of the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts was examined for a sample of White and Mexican-American kindergarten children. The method employed to detect biased items, as defined by an items-by-group interaction, was a two-way analysis of variance with followup being conducted with a Bonferroni-type procedure. Bias-in-item difficulty occurred for both groups, which does not conform to the current popular press view that bias is against ethnic minorities and not against the White majority. The finding that on some items the Mexican-American group out-performed the White group indicates the need to examine carefully the question of bias and to reconsider popular conceptualizations of the many issues of bias in educational and psychological testing.