Re-thinking the relationship between theory and practice: Practitioners as map-readers, map-makers—or jazz players?

Theory is a major element in professional knowledge. Doubts about its value reported by practitioners raise questions at a critical juncture in the careers field about the relevance of prevailing theories and how they are approached. The topic of the relationship between theory and practice is a sensitive one in the debate on competencies and an illuminating one in that on post-modernism. As recent studies demonstrate, problems in integrating theory and practice arise in training and may persist, but experienced practitioners achieve 'fusion' between them and become 'practical theorists'. Practice is improvisatory, and is refined by frameworks provided by theory, critical thinking and 'reflective practice'. However, theories are often tardy or irrelevant, and practitioners also need to be able to carry out their own research, including action research. This has implications for initial and in-service training, supervision and policy, and for the relationships between researchers, theorists and practitioners.     

Relationship of drug use to involvement in school, home, and community activities: results of a large survey of adolescents.

All 7th, 9th, and 11th grade students in 129 school districts responded to a 466-variable survey that primarily assessed drug use but also contained questions about involvement in various activities. Meaningful relationships were obtained between students' involvement in school, family, and church activities and reported use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. Factors reflecting the extent of parental supervision were also related to the reported use of those substances.     

Mental health status among Puerto Ricans,Mexican Americans,and Non-Hispanic whites

Compared mental health characteristics of island Puerto Ricans to three groups from the Los Angeles Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study: Mexican American immigrants, U.S.-born Mexican Americans, and Non-Hispanic whites. The Diagnostic Interview Schedule was used to obtain both diagnostic and symptom scale information about affective disorders, alcohol abuse/dependence, somatization, phobic disorder, and psychotic disorder. Mexican American immigrants had the fewest mental health problems of all groups. Puerto Ricans had more somatization disorder, but less affective and alcohol disorders than U.S-born Mexican Americans or non-Hispanic whites. Results are considered in the light of selection factors, relative disadvantage of groups and methodological problems. This research was supported by grants MH36230 and MH45763 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and made use of data from the Los Angeles site of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program, which is a series of five epidemiologic research studies performed by independent research teams in collaboration with staff of the Division of Biometry and Epidemiology of the National Institute of Mental Health. The NIMH principal collaborators were D. Regier, B. Locke, W. Eaton and J. Burke. The NIMH project officers were C. Taube and W. Huber. The principal investigators and coinvestigators from the five sites were Yale University: J. Myers, M. Weissman, G. Tischler; Johns Hopkins University: M. Kramer, E. Gruenberg, S. Shapiro; Washington University: L. Robins, J. Helzer; Duke University: D. Blazer, L. George; University of California at Los Angeles: M. Karno, R. Hough, J. Escobar, A. Burnam, D. Timbers.     

The death and transfiguration of career-and of career guidance?

The predominant understanding of career in the industrial era has focused on progression within hierarchical work organisations. With the move into a post-industrial era, the possibility of such careers is rapidly receding. The concept of career, however, has always been broader than this, and other aspects of it are now claiming increased attention. They focus more upon individual experiences in terms of development in learning and work throughout life. The role of career guidance in relation to such experiences is potentially of much greater social significance. A number of implications for career guidance provision and practice are discussed.     

Career in context

Mainstream career theories have been criticised for their scanty conceptualisation of the environment that influences individuals' careers. There are few foundations upon which to build an appropriate conceptualisation of the dramatically changing environment of career today. The implications of Pepper's contextualist world hypothesis are discussed. Compared with orthodox approaches, the world as seen from this perspective is as different as the Internet is from a library; its understanding of the environment, and indeed career, is also significantly different. The contextualist perspective upon career research, theory and practice is outlined and the possibility of its adoption in the mainstream of the career field is explored     

The coincidence effect in similarity and choice

Medin, Goldstone, and Markman (1995) recently described a series of parallel effects in similarity and choice. They suggested that similarity and choice are related in a nontrivial way such that choice may entail a similarity judgment to an explicit or constructed ideal. In this paper, the correspondences between similarity and choice were investigated with respect to a phenomenon in similarity known as thecoincidence effect. In coincidence (pronounced “coincide-ence”), two items that match on one dimension but have a large difference on another dimension receive a higher similarity rating than do two items that have only modest differences on both dimensions. We conducted five experiments in order to examine commonalities between similarity and choice processes with respect to coincidence. Four types of tasks were given: similarity ratings, desirability ratings, forced choice similarities (which of two items is most similar to a target), and forced choice preferences (which of two items one would prefer, given a target). We found a main effect for ratings as opposed to forced choices, with ratings showing greater coincidence effects than did choices. Similarity measures tended to produce more coincidence than did preference measures. The overall pattern of results suggests the presence of dimensional weighting processes sensitive to task characteristics and operating somewhat differently for similarity and decision making.     

Inductive acuity and the acquisition of language

This study attempted to assess the inductive explanation of language acquisition. It was predicted that inductive acuity, operationally defined by reference to Kagan's concept of Reflection-Impulsivity, would facilitate syntactic and semantic development. Results indicated that children who are superior inductors scored higher on semantic tests, but not on syntactic tests. It was suggested that distinct learning strategies may be involved in the acquisition of syntax and semantics. Various theoretical implications of these findings for models of language encoding were discussed. Suggestions for subsequent research were offered.