Exploring Perspectives on the Hiring of School Counsellors: from Directive to Direction

Currently, there is no national framework or standardized procedure for the selection and recruitment of counsellors for schools in India. Hiring as a practice aids the selection of a professional counsellor in alignment with the needs of the school. In order to bring this area into research focus, the present study employs a qualitative design to explore perspectives of five school principals and five school counsellors on the hiring of prospective school counsellors. In-depth interviews were conducted with the participants, and data collected were subjected to thematic analysis. Findings describe reasons underlying the hiring of school counsellors, the criteria that are used to guide selection, the process of hiring itself and issues currently encountered during selection. They indicate a need for structured formal guidelines for selection and recruitment of school counsellors at the school and policy level. On the basis of findings, a checklist is presented to serve as an initial guide in the hiring process in the absence of a defined system of selection and recruitment.     

关于归因定向与行为预测的实验研究

不同的归因方式将导致人们对行为的不同预测倾向。本文正是基于这样的假设,来考察在信息匮乏的情况下,性情归因和情景归因对他人积极行为和消极行为的预测倾向的影响。结果发现,两种归因方式都导致被试对积极行为的预测多于对消极行为的预测,而情景归因下的被试对积极行为的预测又显著多于性情归因下的被试。在此基础上,在引人价值判断的因素后,发现不同的归因方式启动了不同的价值判断,进而影响到对行为的预测。     

School Adjustment and Small-Group Therapy: An Israeli Study

In this study the author examines the effects ofsmall-group therapy on school adjustment. It included 73 elementary students assessed by school faculty as poorly adjusted and in need of counseling. A pre-post-test comparison group design was used. Based on a 10-item teacher evaluation, results indicated significant progress for the experimental students in their interpersonal relationships, behavior, and some achievement scores.     

Theoretical Orientations of New Zealand Psychologists: An International Comparison

Registered practicing psychologists in New Zealand (n = 221) were surveyed concerning their predominant theoretical orientation. Results were compared with findings obtained among Australian psychologists by Byrne and Reinhart (1990), British psychologists by Garrett and Davis (1995), and North American psychologists by Norcross, Karg, and Prochaska (1997a). The results showed that while New Zealand psychologists use cognitive approaches more often than both British and North American psychologists, they use behavioral and psychodynamic approaches less often. Overall, it was found that the eclectic approach is the most popular theoretical orientation obtained in surveys of Australian, New Zealand, and North American psychologists, in that no group subscribed exclusively to a single theoretical orientation.     

Counseling with Elementary School Children: An Experimental Study

An attempt was made to assess results of counseling with fourth-grade students, using sociometric status as the criterion. A sociometric device was administered to four fourth-grade classrooms. Students of low sociometric status were randomly assigned by classrooms to one of three treatment conditions: (1) counseling, (2) teacher guidance, and (3) control. When treatment conditions were compared, the evidence seemed to indicate significant differences in the relative frequency with which subjects increased or decreased in sociometric status, that the differences favored the counseling condition, and that these differences persisted over a period of seven months. The possibility of a temporary teacher influence on the sociometric criterion was indicated.     

Goal Orientations and Tendency to Neutralize Academic Cheating: An Ecological Perspective

This study examined the phenomenon of academic cheating while focusing on the unique and interactive effects of sociocultural variables on academic motivation, goal orientation and self-efficacy perception of 221 Muslim and Jewish female students. A mixed quantitative and qualitative research design with Multivariate-Analysis of Covariance, Step-wise Discriminant Function Analysis, Path Analysis and semi-structured interviews have been used to clarify the data obtained in various scales. Path Analysis indicated that the main factor predicting the tendency to neutralize academic cheating was the performance goal of pleasing parents mediated by extrinsic motivation. Further analysis showed between-ethnic-groups differences with Muslim students being more extrinsically motivated by the performance goal of pleasing the parents. Content analysis of the interviews conducted with 22 students showed that, in contrast to the Jewish students?? individualistic perspective, Muslim students' collective perspective put them under tremendous pressure to succeed due to the rippling effect of success on all spheres of life e.g., family??s honor, community standing, and future marriage prospects.     

Counselling Psychologists and Counsellors: New Challenges and Opportunities

The next three or four years are likely to see the emergence of a new professionally recognised group of British counsellors. They will be known as counselling psychologists. The developments that will lead to the establishment of this new professional group are outlined and some of the ways in which counsellors and counselling psychologists may complement each other's work are examined. Some anxieties are voiced about how overlapping professional boundaries might produce friction between the two groups, and a few ideas about how this may be avoided or minimised are suggested.     

小学优等生与学习不良学生智力特征的比较研究

本研究运用 WISC-CR研究了小学阶段一、三、五年级优生与学习不良儿童在智力水平与智力结构上的异同。研究结果表明 :1优生与学习不良儿童在智力水平上有十分显著的差异 ,优生的平均智商为 1 2 0 .1 ,学习不良儿童的平均智商为 97.4;2优生在操作分量表与语言分量表上的得分比较均匀 ,但学习不良儿童的操作智商显著地优于语言智商 ;3优生与学习不良儿童在智力结构上也不尽相同 ,优生在词汇、积木、类同等分测验上的得分高 ,在算术、背数、排列等分测验上的得分较低 ;学习不良儿童在拼图、译码、填图、词汇等分测验上的得分较高 ,在常识、算术、背数等上的得分较低。     

Sex Differences In Response To Evaluative Feedback: A Field Study

We investigated sex differences in response to evaluative feedback among bank employees who were going through the annual performance evaluation process. Questionnaires were mailed to employees before and after they had their face–to–face evaluation with their supervisor. Women and men received similar evaluation scores. Men's self–esteem was relatively unaffected by the nature of the feedback, whereas women's self–esteem slightly improved after positive feedback and substantially dropped after negative feedback. After the evaluations, women reported greater intentions to change their behavior based on the evaluation. However, this finding was accounted for by men's higher job status relative to women. The findings for self–esteem were partly explained by women's greater agreement with the feedback compared to men. Future research should explore how the nature of the supervisee–supervisor relationship influences how women and men respond to feedback.     

A Preventive Approach to School Violence and Vandalism: An Experimental Study

School violence and vandalism are at crisis level. The investigators attempted to employ strategies that would attack identified procreators of school violence and vandalism existing within our schools. The effects of these strategies on vandalism costs, student attendance, off-task and disruptive behaviors, and on various kinds of positive teacher-student contacts were investigated in 19 elementary schools. Results indicated that the dollar costs of vandalism and frequency of inappropriate student behaviors decreased more in experimental than in control schools. Student attending and positive teacher-student contacts improved, or remained higher, in the experimental than in the control schools.     

Genetic Counsellors and Private Practice: Professional Turbulence and Common Values

Genetic counsellors face tensions between past and future identities: between established values and goals, and a broadening scope of settings and activities. This study examines the advent of genetic counsellors in private practice in Australia and New Zealand from the perspectives of the small numbers working in this sector and those who have only worked in public practice. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 genetic counsellors who had experience in private practice, and 14 genetic counsellors without private sector experience. Results demonstrated that circumstantial and personal factors can mitigate the challenges experienced and the amount of support desired by those who had established a private practice, and those who were employed by private companies. Notably, most participants with private sector experience perceived themselves to be viewed negatively by other genetic counsellors. Most participants without private sector experience expressed concern that the challenges they believed genetic counsellors face in private practice may impact service quality, but wished to address such concerns by providing appropriate support. Together, our results reinforce that participants in private and public sectors are strong advocates for peer support, multidisciplinary team work, and professional development. These core values, and seeking understanding of different circumstances and support needs, will enable genetic counsellors in different sectors to move forward together. Our results suggest supports that may be acted upon by members of the profession, professional groups, and training programs, in Australia, New Zealand, and overseas.     

School phobia: An overview

This article discusses general features of school phobia and specific clinical and familial traits and characteristics. Included are overviews of theoretical explanations, types of school phobia, suggested methods of treatment, and their efficacy.     

Evaluative conditioning: Recent developments and future directions

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is generally considered to be one of the routes via which likes and dislikes are acquired. We identify recent trends in EC research and speculate about the topics that will dominate future research on EC. Many of the recent developments in EC research were shaped by functional definitions of EC that refer only to environmental conditions, but not to mental processes and representations. These functional definitions stimulated the development of and debates between theories about the mental processes that mediate EC. These trends, as well as greater methodological and conceptual sophistication, inspired meta-conditional studies that aim at determining the conditions under which EC is characterized by certain properties. The question of whether EC depends on contingency awareness remains a central topic, albeit with a stronger link to theorizing about underlying mental processes. Other automaticity features have gained enhanced interest, as can for example be seen in research investigating whether EC is goal-independent and whether EC is resource-independent. We argue that future research would benefit from a sharper distinction between processes that operate during acquisition (i.e., when CS–US pairs are presented) and processes that operate during measurement (i.e., when the effects of CS–US pairings are assessed). We conclude with a short summary of all articles in this Special Issue, relating them to the identified trends in EC research.     

Evaluative conditioning in social psychology: Facts and speculations

The aim of the present paper is to examine the contribution of evaluative conditioning (EC) to attitude formation theory in social psychology. This aim is pursued on two fronts. First, evaluative conditioning is analysed for its relevance to social psychological research. We show that conditioned attitudes can be acquired through simple co‐occurrences of a neutral and a valenced stimulus. Moreover, we argue that conditioned attitudes are not confined to direct contact with a valenced stimulus, but can be formed and dynamically reformed indirectly, through association chains. Second, social research is examined in an effort to identify evaluative learning mechanisms. We suggest that several important phenomena in social psychology (e.g., ingroup favouritism, prejudice, name letter effect) are at least partly due to simple mechanisms of evaluative learning. The implications for attitude formation theory and for applied settings are discussed.