Toward Developing a Behavioral Counselor Education Model

Counselor education currently does not have a training model that is systematically employed and contains provisions for individual differences or promotes the development of programs for facilitating transfer of training. In the proposed model, counselor educators must decide which of the counseling student's thinking, feeling, and acting behaviors will become the focus of training efforts. The staff creatively implements its conceptualized behavioral curriculum goals through the application of learning principles to specified counseling student behaviors that are assessed to determine if whether or not the desired behavior changes are occurring.     

Evaluating a computer‐based reading programme with children with Intellectual Disabilities: feasibility and pilot research

Increasing evidence indicates that individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) might benefit from phonics‐based reading instruction. However, research and instruction in this field has predominantly focused on sight word reading. Models for complex interventions recommend that feasibility research be conducted prior to conducting randomised studies to assess efficacy of interventions (Thabane et al., 2010). The aim of the current paper is therefore to investigate feasibility questions relating to conducting a full‐scale randomised controlled trial (RCT) evaluation of an online, phonics‐based reading programme (Headsprout^? Early Reading; HER) with children with ID. Employing a randomised pre‐test post‐test group design, this study explores and trials important aspects of a RCT evaluation to inform a full‐scale RCT. We also found that HER had a significant effect on reading skills when compared with ‘education as usual’, with large effect sizes on the main outcome measure. This indicates that further, more robust evaluations using HER with children with ID are a worthwhile pursuit.     

Learning about the past: exploring the opportunities and challenges of using an outdoor learning approach

This paper examines the potential of outdoor learning for supporting children’s understanding of and attitude towards history. A class of primary school children participated in an intensive experiential, residential history programme. A range of data was collected before, during and after the residential programme, and the findings suggest that the experience had a positive impact on the children’s attitude towards history and enabled many of the children to be able to easily recall highly specific factual knowledge. However, the children’s understanding of history as a provisional construct was not developed, as it was not a strong feature of the programme. Nor was the experiential nature of the experience fully exploited. Overall the study suggests that such a programme has the potential to support children’s learning of the past, but a deeper understanding of history, drawing on the benefits of outdoor learning pedagogy, needs to be planned for more explicitly.     

Externalities, technological complementarities and sustained economic growth

Externalities as conventionally defined miss many of the spillovers that are both causes and consequences of the technological changes that underlie economic growth. We introduce a much wider concept called technological complementarities. New general purpose technologies (GPTs) rejuvenate the growth process by creating technological complementarities, which are adequately measured neither by total factor productivity (TFP) nor by externalities. There would be major gains from technological change even if the returns on capital invested in innovation never exceeded the returns on investing in existing technologies so that there were neither externalities nor positive changes in TFP.     

The role of social embeddedness in professorial entrepreneurship: a comparison of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley and Stanford

Professorial entrepreneurship has recently attracted much attention. This paper draws upon historical research, a survey of faculty, and an Internet-based methodology for identifying professorial affiliations with entrepreneurial firms at two of the premier electrical engineering and computer science departments in the US, The University of California, Berkeley and Stanford. We employ the concept of “nested embeddedness” to explain why the faculty members in these two institutions have different levels of entrepreneurship and corporate involvement. EE&CS faculty at both universities were found to be socially embedded in departments and disciplines that supported and placed value on entrepreneurial activities. However, while being embedded in a university environment with a history of success and high level of support for entrepreneurship, EE&CS faculty at Stanford had a significantly greater level of corporate involvement, including the founding of start-ups. Although significantly less than Stanford, the level of corporate involvement among EE&CS faculty at Berkeley was also substantial. This suggests that being embedded in an academic department and disciplines with cultures that are supportive of entrepreneurial activity can help counteract the disincentives created by a university environment that is not strongly supportive of these activities.     

Identifying future scientists: predicting persistence into research training

This study used semistructured interviews and grounded theory to look for characteristics among college undergraduates that predicted persistence into Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. training. Participants in the summer undergraduate and postbaccalaureate research programs at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine were interviewed at the start, near the end, and 8–12 months after their research experience. Of more than 200 themes considered, five characteristics predicted those students who went on to Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. training or to M.D. training intending to do research: 1) Curiosity to discover the unknown, 2) Enjoyment of problem solving, 3) A high level of independence, 4) The desire to help others indirectly through research, and 5) A flexible, minimally structured approach to the future. Web-based surveys with different students confirmed the high frequency of curiosity and/or problem solving as the primary reason students planned research careers. No evidence was found for differences among men, women, and minority and nonminority students. Although these results seem logical compared with successful scientists, their constancy, predictive capabilities, and sharp contrast to students who chose clinical medicine were striking. These results provide important insights into selection and motivation of potential biomedical scientists and the early experiences that will motivate them toward research careers.     

Teachers' education, classroom quality, and young children's academic skills: results from seven studies of preschool programs

In an effort to provide high-quality preschool education, policymakers are increasingly requiring public preschool teachers to have at least a Bachelor's degree, preferably in early childhood education. Seven major studies of early care and education were used to predict classroom quality and children's academic outcomes from the educational attainment and major of teachers of 4-year-olds. The findings indicate largely null or contradictory associations, indicating that policies focused solely on increasing teachers' education will not suffice for improving classroom quality or maximizing children's academic gains. Instead, raising the effectiveness of early childhood education likely will require a broad range of professional development activities and supports targeted toward teachers' interactions with children.