Success Rates in the Vocational Rehabilitation Of Mental Patients

The post-treatment work adjustment of mental patients receiving rehabilitation services is extremely difficult to evaluate. A follow-up study of 223 patients referred for vocational rehabilitation to the Mental Health and Manpower project from the Fort Logan Health Center revealed percentages of patients successfully employed or in training which appear to be slightly higher than those usually reported. There were marked differences in post-rehabilitation adjustment between alcoholic and psychiatric referrals. These differences in success rates appeared to be partly a function of type of placement (i.e., direct job placement, on-the-job placement, or institutional training placement).     

Microteaching: A Proposal For Manpower Development and Training Improvement

Microteaching, using videotape equipment as a training aid, may enhance the skills and effectiveness of trainees in Manpower Development Training centers. Microteaching allows the trainee to learn through manipulative experience and to receive immediate feedback regarding his performance. Moreover, this procedure provides program coordinators with a means of evaluating the efficiency, effectiveness, and utility of the center and its facilities as well as providing a starting point for trainee improvement. In addition, videotaped experiences offer increased knowledge to counselors, thus promoting vocational direction best suited to trainee needs.     

FACTORS RELATED TO SUCCESS IN AN MDTA PROGRAM

A study was undertaken to attempt to relate selected defined factors to success in a Manpower Development Training Center program. Subjects were disadvantaged or culturally deprived adults who were referred to a nurse aide-orderly training course that consisted of both vocational and remedial education phases. Factors studied were an evaluation by the referring counselor in the stated interest of an individual taking the training, previous employment history (compiled by both type and duration), formal educational level, age when completing the course, expressed attitudes toward the course while enrolled, and aptitude test results.     

Person-Placement Congruence: A Framework for Vocational Counselors

A common guideline for vocational counseling is the rule requiring congruence between a man and his job. The issue of person-placement congruence was studied utilizing 159 patients referred for vocational rehabilitation to the Mental Health and Manpower Project from the Fort Logan Mental Health Center. A 13-item scale devised by project research staff and completed by vocational counselors was shown to predict later job success. By separating the scale into two categories, those items dealing with abilities and those related to needs, it was possible to predict the nature of job termination, i.e., quit or was fired. There was demonstrated considerable validity for the man-job fit approach to counseling, and this research served as an initial step toward detailing this rather simple rule.     

Generalization in Human Category Learning: A Connectionist Account of Differences in Gradient after Discriminative and Non discriminative Training

Two experiments are reported that investigate the difference in gradient of generalization observed between one-category (non-discriminative) and two-category (discriminative) training. Extrapolating from the results of a number of animal learning studies, it was predicted that the gradient should be steeper under discriminative training. The first experiment confirms this basic prediction for the stimuli used, which were novel, prototype-structured, and constructed from 12 symbols positioned on a grid. An explanation for the effect, based on the Rescorla-Wagner theory of Pavlovian conditioning (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), is that under non-discriminative training 'incidental stimuli' have significant control over responding,whereas under discriminative training they do not. Incidental stimuli are those aspects of the stimulus, or the surrounding context, that are not differentially reinforced under discriminative training. This explanation leads to the prediction that a comparable effect of blocked versus intermixed discriminative training should also be found. This prediction is disconfirmed by the second experiment. An alternative model, still based on the RescorlaWagner theory but with the addition of a decision mechanism comprising a threshold unit and a competitive network system, is proposed, and its ability to predict both the choice probabilities and the pattern of response times found is evaluated via simulation.     

Learning a Phonological Contrast Modulates the Auditory Grouping of Rhythm

Perceptual grouping is fundamental to many auditory processes. The Iambic–Trochaic Law (ITL) is a default grouping strategy, where rhythmic alternations of duration are perceived iambically (weak‐strong), while alternations of intensity are perceived trochaically (strong‐weak). Some argue that the ITL is experience dependent. For instance, French speakers follow the ITL, but not as consistently as German speakers. We hypothesized that learning about prosodic patterns, like word stress, modulates this rhythmic grouping. We tested this idea by training French adults on a German‐like stress contrast. Individuals who showed better phonological learning had more ITL‐like grouping, particularly over duration cues. In a non‐phonological condition, French adults were trained using identical stimuli, but they learned to attend to acoustic variation that was not linguistic. Here, no learning effects were observed. Results thus suggest that phonological learning can modulate low‐level auditory grouping phenomena, but it is constrained by the ability of individuals to learn from short‐term training.     

The Utility of Homogeneous Subgroups and Individual Information in Prediction

A number of behavioral research studies have employed subgroups of subjects for prediction. In using subgroups for predictive purposes, a key assumption is often overlooked, i.e., at least one of the grouping or predictor dimensions affects the relationships between the other grouping dimensions and the criteria. The purposes of the present study were (a) to emphasize this commonly overlooked assumption and (b) to examine empirically the utility of subgroup versus individual information in prediction. Data collected on 509 freshmen in 32 life history subgroups (19 male and 13 female subgroups) were used to evaluate the utility of subgroup information in prediction. Of 24 criteria (college experience data, e.g., academic achievement) predicted by subgroup information, predictive efficiency of four criterion measures was enhanced when subgroup information was added to individual information. However, for the vast majority of the criterion measures, predictive efficiency would have been lost had only subgroup information been used in prediction. It is recommended that researchers carefully evaluate the effects on predictive efficiency when using subgroups rather than individual information in prediction.     

Similarity grouping as feature-based selection

Our visual system groups objects with similar features, such as colour, orientation, or shape. We argue that similarity grouping is nothing more than global selection of a certain feature value, such as red, horizontal, or circular. This account makes the striking prediction that only one feature group can be created at a time. Here we provide the most direct evidence yet for this proposal, using a number estimation task that forces simultaneous processing of all objects. Multiple similarity cues failed to produce grouping in this task, in contrast to proximity, connectivity, and common region, which all showed strong grouping effects.     

JOB DEVELOPMENT FOR THE MENTALLY RESTORED PSYCHIATRIC PATIENT1

The experiences of the placement department of the Mental Health and Manpower Project have demonstrated that an effective team can be created to develop job opportunities for the mentally restored psychiatric patient. Composed of a vocational counselor and a placement counselor, the team is effective in securing meaningful employment and developing re-education programs in the community. While the vocational counselor provides the clinical information concerning the restored patient-client, the placement counselor serves as a more personnel oriented individual in finding the appropriate kind of employment position. The team points to the potential that the mental health center possesses in involving the general community in its programs.     

Validity of USES Aptitude Test Batteries for Predicting MDTA Training Success

As a result of the continuing Federal-State cooperative test research program in the Employment Service, aptitude test batteries for a large number of specific occupations have been developed. These test batteries are in daily use by Employment Service counselors of candidates for training programs established under the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) of 1962. To what extent are these test batteries predictive of success of enrollees in MDTA courses? This article summarizes the available evidence on this question, based on data for 875 MDTA trainees in 12 courses. In 10 of the 12 samples the operational test norms showed significant cross validity.     

Predictors of Success in High School Level Vocational Education Programs: A Review, 1954–1967

Over 1,200 correlations reported in 38 studies appearing in the period 1954–1967 are summarized for 10 predictor categories and 11 vocational program areas. For each predictor-program combination the distribution of correlations is given along with median correlation (r), total number of students involved, number of correlations located, and an index to the relevant studies. Main trends include (a) substantial variation in results from study to study; (b) differences in level of predictor-criterion r among vocational areas and between males and females; (c) evidence of differential predictability; and (d) poor performance of dexterity tests.     

Visual training improves perceptual grouping based on basic stimulus features

Training on visual tasks improves performance on basic and higher order visual capacities. Such improvement has been linked to changes in connectivity among mediating neurons. We investigated whether training effects occur for perceptual grouping. It was hypothesized that repeated engagement of integration mechanisms would enhance grouping processes. Thirty-six participants underwent 15 sessions of training on a visual discrimination task that required perceptual grouping. Participants viewed 20?×?20 arrays of dots or Gabor patches and indicated whether the array appeared grouped as vertical or horizontal lines. Across trials stimuli became progressively disorganized, contingent upon successful discrimination. Four visual dimensions were examined, in which grouping was based on similarity in luminance, color, orientation, and motion. Psychophysical thresholds of grouping were assessed before and after training. Results indicate that performance in all four dimensions improved with training. Training on a control condition, which paralleled the discrimination task but without a grouping component, produced no improvement. In addition, training on only the luminance and orientation dimensions improved performance for those conditions as well as for grouping by color, on which training had not occurred. However, improvement from partial training did not generalize to motion. Results demonstrate that a training protocol emphasizing stimulus integration enhanced perceptual grouping. Results suggest that neural mechanisms mediating grouping by common luminance and/or orientation contribute to those mediating grouping by color but do not share resources for grouping by common motion. Results are consistent with theories of perceptual learning emphasizing plasticity in early visual processing regions.     

CEU: Stimulating Manpower Personnel Training in Higher Education

Manpower personnel training programs in higher education settings have suffered a variety of ills. This article describes a promising way to cure many of them—the Continuing Education Unit (CEU). Salient features of CEU are described, implementation guidelines are suggested, and further references are provided for those desiring more complete information about the CEU training program. The article makes a plea to those in higher education and in manpower agency settings to close the gap between available university training resources and the expressed training needs of manpower personnel.     

Common-fate grouping as feature selection

The visual system groups elements within the visual field that are physically separated yet similar to each other. Although grouping processes have been intensely studied for a century, the mechanisms of grouping remain elusive. We propose that a primary mechanism for grouping by common fate is attentional selection of a direction of motion. A unique prediction follows from this account: that the visual system must be limited to forming only a single common-fate group at a time, and that attempts to find a particular common-fate group among other groups, or among nongroups, should therefore be highly inefficient. We show that this is true in searches for vertically oriented groups of moving dots among horizontally oriented groups (Experiment 1) and in searches for motion-linked groups among nonlinked objects (Experiment 2). Feature selection may limit the visual system to the construction of only one common-fate group at a time, and thus the experience of simultaneous grouping may be an illusion.     

DISPOSITIONAL INFLUENCES ON TRANSFER OF LEARNING IN MULTISTAGE TRAINING PROGRAMS

The training effectiveness literature has paid little attention to the potentially dynamic interaction of individual differences with various phases of training in determining ultimate training success. This study investigates the role of individual differences in explaining the transfer of learning from 1 phase of training to another among pilot trainees in a multistage, aviation training program. Using 3 of the Big Five factors (Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience), the results showed these measures to contribute to the prediction of the number of hours it took for trainees to attain their private pilot's license. Significant interactions between some of these measures and success on an earlier, simulator phase of the training program were also found. The results are discussed in terms of both the role of individual differences in training research as well as the broader issue of transfer of learning between phases of training.     

EFFECTS OF SUBJECT- VERSUS EXPERIMENTER-SELECTED REINFORCERS ON THE BEHAVIOR OF INDIVIDUALS WITH PROFOUND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

Results from a number of studies have shown that individuals with profound developmental disabilities often show differential approach behavior to stimuli presented in a variety of formats, and that such behavior is a reasonably good predictor of reinforcement effects when these “preferred” stimuli are used subsequently in a contingent arrangement. Recent data suggest that reinforcement effects may be enhanced further by allowing individuals to select, just prior to training sessions, which (of several) preferred stimuli would be used as reinforcers, but whether this method is superior to one based on selection by a teacher or therapist has not been adequately addressed. We compared the effects of these two methods of reinforcer selection on rates of responding on a free-operant task, using stimuli previously identified as potential reinforcers. Results obtained with 4 subjects indicated little or no difference in reinforcement effects when stimuli were selected by subjects rather than experimenters. Implications of these results with respect to choice and its relation to reinforcement are discussed.     

Moving for Their First Job or Staying Put? Predictors of High School Students’ Attitudes Toward Geographic Mobility

In order to understand better the factors that influence adolescents' mobility attitudes, a questionnaire study of high school students ( N = 392) was conducted 1 year before their graduation. Mobility proneness was higher for adolescents with an individualistic attitude and when parents' and friends' attitudes toward mobility were perceived to be more positive. Uncertainty tolerance and strong vocational goals also were found to increase mobility proneness. In contrast, mobility proneness was lower for adolescents with a collectivistic attitude and firm plans for vocational training. The number of prior relocations has been identified as an influential factor in other studies, but did not prove significant here. The results support the notion that individualism and parents' and peers' attitudes, in particular, can be identified as adolescence-specific predictors of a positive attitude toward mobility and should be investigated further.     

Differential Prediction of Immigrant Versus Majority Group Training Performance Using Cognitive Ability and Personality Measures

There are very few studies of the differential prediction of work and training performance for immigrant groups in the Netherlands. Scores on the General Aptitude Test Battery, an intelligence test, and the Amsterdamse Biografische Vragenlijst (ABV), a frequently used Dutch personality test, and training data for 78 immigrant and 78 Dutch trainee truck drivers were collected. Lautenschlager and Mendoza’s (1986) method of step-down hierarchical regression analysis was used to check for bias in the prediction of training results. Some predictor-criterion combinations showed differential prediction, especially with less cognitive and less objective criteria. The results with respect to the intelligence test appear to be in line with the findings of the US literature.     

Traditionality and the Discriminating Effect of Expectations of Occupational Success and Occupational Values for Women within Math-Oriented Fields

Success expectations and vocational values have been identified as important features of women's career pursuits. Also, examination of differences among women pursuing traditionally and nontraditionally open fields has proven illuminating. Nonetheless, the women compared in such studies often pursued fields requiring vastly different competencies, interests, and training. This study investigated possible differences between women majoring in math-oriented fields in a traditionally closed area, engineering, and those in a traditionally open area, math education, with respect to success expectations in such fields and to the importance of various vocational outcomes. Success expectations for traditional and nontraditional occupations distinguished between the two groups, as did values for a number of vocational outcomes. In understanding women's career choices, the findings support the role of success expectations, the little studied role of outcome desirability, and the value of examining within-group occupational orientations within fields differing in traditionality but requiring similar skills, training, and interests.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1980: A review

Papers were reviewed in the sections where their major findings seemed to have the most important implications. Since it typically was not possible to do justice to individual studies in a few lines of summary, readers are referred to the specific articles of their interest for further information regarding other findings.As has been the case in the past several years, the number of studies related to vocational behavior and career development appears to be expanding, along with perceptions of what is relevant to the field. As greater emphasis is placed on the working life of individuals after initial occupational choices are made, researchers on vocational behavior and career development will increasingly find it necessary to synthesize research findings from the areas of industrial/organizational psychology, organizational sociology, and organizational behavior and theory. This factor may suggest greater collaboration among researchers across these fields in the future. In any event, the broadening base of relevant research, while challenging, also is an exciting development with rich potential for increased knowledge of vocational behavior.As Walsh mentioned in his review of 1978 literature, there is a vital need for more work of a longitudinal nature. We see some increase this year, but we are too frequently forced to draw conclusions regarding long-term vocational development from studies which are mainly crosssectional and correlational in nature.Among the research directions of note this year is the increasing emphasis on information processing/decision-making frameworks as a means of studying the vocation development process. Other trends were the growing concern with the relationship between work and nonwork, interest in recruitment processes, and the emphasis on situational as well as individual factors in predicting vocational behavior.