Community College Counseling: Why Are Research Outcomes So Elusive?

This article focuses on counseling research in the community college context. The article suggests the need for a robust community college knowledge base, describes some limitations of the current community college literature, and suggests a framework for more effective work in this area. The authors’ own experiences and selected examples of published studies are used as illustrations of the hurdles encountered and solutions available when examining counseling theories, practices, and outcomes in 2‐year settings.     

The young child's gender schema: environmental input, internal organization

The relation among children's ability to apply gender labels, their tendency to emit sex-typed behavior, and their parents' attitudes and reactions toward sex-typed behaviors was studied. The children were observed at home with their parents when the children were 18 months old, before any of them had passed the gender-labeling task, and at 27 months, when half had passed (early labelers) and half had not (late labelers). At 18 months, there were no differences in the children's sex-typed behavior, but parents of future early labelers gave more positive and negative responses to sex-typed toy play. By 27 months, early labelers showed more traditional sex-typed behavior than late labelers; parents of early and late labelers no longer differed in their responses. At age 4, when given an inventory of sex stereotyping, early labelers scored higher on Sex Role Discrimination; there were no differeces on Sex Role Preference scores.     

Differential reactions to assertive and communicative acts of toddler boys and girls

34 children were observed in infant play groups. 2 sets of infant behaviors were coded: assertive acts and attempts to communicate with adults. No sex differences were observed at 13 to 14 months in any of these behaviors. However, adults attended to girls' assertive behaviors far less of the time than to boys' assertive behaviors. They attended more to girls' less intense communication attempts and to boys' more intense attempts. When 29 of the same children were observed in toddler play groups no more than 11 months later, there were sex differences in behavior. Boys were more assertive; girls talked to teachers more. Teachers no longer differentiated their responses to boys and girls. Peers reacted more to boys' assertive behavior than to girls.' We hypothesized that caregivers may use stereotypes to guide their reactions to infants because infant behavior is ambiguous. For the toddlers, behavior had become more defined, and caregivers reacted to the behaviors. By using the sex stereotype to guide their reactions to younger children, the caregivers may have perpetuated the stereotype.     

Speech in the Senate

Gard, Robert, Grassroots Theatre, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955, 263 pp., $4.00.

Cooper, Charles W., Preface to Drama, New York: Ronald Press, 1955, 773 pp., $4.50.

Joels, Merrill E., Acting is a Business, New York: Hastings House, 1955, 96 pp., $2.50.

Kaufman, W. I., How To Write For Television, New York: Hastings House, 1955, 95 pp., $2.50.

Macgowan, K., and Melnitz, W., The Living Stage, New York: Prentice‐Hall, 1955, 543 pp., $6.00.

Bettinger, H., revised by Corberg, S., Television Techniques, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955, 236 pp., $3.75.

Kingston, W. K., Cowgill, R., and Levy, R., Broadcasting Television and Radio, New York: Prentice‐Hall, 1955, 274 pp., $4.00.

Oliver, R. T., Dickey, D., and Zelko, H., rev. ed., Communicative Speech, New York: Dryden Press, 1955, 386 pp., $3.60.

Crocker, L., and Eich, L. M., Oral Reading, 2nd. ed., New York: Prentice‐Hall, 1955, 492 pp., $5.50.

Brigance, William N., Speech Communication, 2nd. ed., New York: Appleton‐Century‐Crofts, 1955, 202 pp.

Black, J. W., and Moore, W. E., Speech: Code, Meaning, and Communication, New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1955, 430 pp., $4.50.

McBurney, J. H., and Wrage, E. J., Guide to Good Speech, New York: Prentice‐Hall, 1955, 346 pp., $3.75.

Brown, Charles T., Introduction to Speech, New York: Houghton‐Mifflin, 1955, 458 pp., $4.25.

Braden, W. W., and Brandenburg, E., Oral Decision Making, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955, 572 pp., $4.75.

Davidson, Henry A., Handbook of Parliamentary Procedure, New York: Ronald Press, 1955, 292 pp., $3.75.

Phillips, David C., Oral Communication In Business, New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1955, 229 pp., $3.75.

Smith, Henry C., Psychology of Industrial Behavior, New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1955, 477 pp., $6.00.

Perry, John, Human Relations In Small Industry, New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1955, 313 pp., $5.50.

Zedler, Empress Y., Listening For Speech Sounds, New York, Doubleday and Company, 1955, 145 pp., $3.00.

Streng, Alice et al, Hearing Therapy for Children, New York: Grune and Stratton, 1955, 371 pp., $6.75.

Johnson, Wendell, assisted by Leutenegger, Ralph R., Stuttering in Children and Adults, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955, 472 pp., $5.00     

IS STUDENT-RIGHT-TO-KNOW ALL YOU SHOULD KNOW? An Analysis of Community College Graduation Rates

Over the last decade, policymakers, educators, and researchers have increasingly sought to understand community college policies and practices that promote students’ success. This effort has been partly driven by an increased emphasis on outcome accountability, but it has also promoted a productive discussion about improving institutional performance. The research reported here has two related goals. One goal is to work towards strengthening the ability to assess and compare institutional performance. We thus have developed a model that can be used to adjust simple graduation rates for institutional characteristics, such as student composition, college resources, size, and location, all of which might influence those rates. Our long-term goal is to understand how to improve student outcomes, so the paper also uses the model to measure the effect of those institutional characteristics on graduation rates. We use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) surveys, applying a weighted least-squares procedure for grouped data to estimate an institutional-completion rates model. This analysis confirms several hypotheses about institutional determinants of graduation rates at community colleges. Our results indicate a consistent negative relationship between enrollment size and completion. Additionally, colleges with high shares of minority students, part-time students, and women have lower graduation rates. A final significant finding among institutional characteristics is that greater instructional expenditures are related to a greater likelihood of graduation. The method developed here can be used to better assess the performance of community colleges.     

E-Discovery: What Future Business Leaders Need to Know

All businesses are subject to legal action. When a suit involves allegations of fraud, information contained in electronic documents may form the core of the suit, as it did during a number of successful suits against businesses in the early 2000s. Of equal importance, companies have been punished for intentionally destroying or spoiling or not disclosing electronic documents. This paper discusses how Federal legislation affects electronic discovery, and what professors and students need to know about electronic discovery. It also contains suggestions for how to integrate knowledge about e-discovery into a business information literacy curriculum.