Self-Efficacy for Enhancing Students’ Career and College Readiness: A Survey of Professional School Counselors

Grounded in Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy theory and Savickas’s (2011) career construction theory, this study examined school counselors’ beliefs about whether they can perform specific tasks related to supporting students’ career and college readiness. A national sample of school counselors (N = 2,047) completed the School Counselor Self-Efficacy for Enhancing Student Career and College Readiness Scale (Baker, Parikh-Foxx, & Martinez, 2017). Findings from a survey research design indicated that the extent of related training and the challenges associated with implementation of career service delivery were of concern to participants. Recommendations for training, practice, and further research are presented.     

Creation and Implementation of an Environmental Scan to Assess Cancer Genetics Services at Three Oncology Care Settings

An environmental scan (ES) is an efficient mixed-methods approach to collect and interpret relevant data for strategic planning and project design. To date, the ES has not been used nor evaluated in the clinical cancer genetics setting. We created and implemented an ES to inform the design of a quality improvement (QI) project to increase the rates of adherence to national guidelines for cancer genetic counseling and genetic testing at three unique oncology care settings (OCS). The ES collected qualitative and quantitative data from reviews of internal processes, past QI efforts, the literature, and each OCS. The ES used a data collection form and semi-structured interviews to aid in data collection. The ES was completed within 6 months, and sufficient data were captured to identify opportunities and threats to the QI project’s success, as well as potential barriers to, and facilitators of guideline-based cancer genetics services at each OCS. Previously unreported barriers were identified, including inefficient genetic counseling appointment scheduling processes and the inability to track referrals, genetics appointments, and genetic test results within electronic medical record systems. The ES was a valuable process for QI project planning at three OCS and may be used to evaluate genetics services in other settings.     

Desecration,Moral Boundaries,and the Movement of Law: The Case of Westboro Baptist Church

Using participant observation, in-depth interviews, and legislative histories, we examine Westboro Baptist Church, a religious group infamous for homophobic rhetoric and funeral protests. Employing cultural and interactionist perspectives that focus on the semiotics of death, the sacred, and desecration, we outline how Westboro’s activities purposively violate deeply held signifiers of moral order through language, while simultaneously respecting extant laws of behavior. This strategy, in conjunction with the political profitability of opposing the group, explains why the group’s activism triggered extensive legal disputes and modifications at multiple levels of governance. Westboro’s actions and use of symbols—and those of others against the group—lay bare multiple threads in the sacred cultural fabric of American society.     

Hemodynamic responses to active and passive coping tasks and the prediction of future blood pressure in Thai participants: A preliminary prospective cohort study

Cardiovascular responses to mental stress tests have been related to future blood pressure (BP) levels. However, most studies have been completed in North America and Europe; only one study has been conducted in Asia. Therefore, the study explored whether cardiovascular responses to mental stress predict future resting BP in Thailand. Hemodynamic measures were obtained from 101 healthy adults before, during and after mental arithmetic, a speech task, and a cold pressor task. A follow‐up assessment of resting BP was undertaken 1 year later. Results showed that Thais responded to standardized mental stress tasks with large and significant cardiovascular reactivity. Regression analyses indicated that, after adjustment for baseline BP and traditional risk factors, heightened systolic blood pressure (SBP) responses to mental arithmetic were associated with increased future SBP (ΔR² = .045). These findings suggest that BP reactivity predicts future BP and may play a role in the development of hypertension. In addition, Thais displayed large cardiovascular responses to standardized mental stress tasks, of a similar magnitude to previous studies of North Americans and Europeans.