The Counselor as Consultant in the Collaborative School

A collaborative work environment has been consistently cited as a characteristic of schools that effectively respond to the diverse needs of students. Because of their role and related skills, counselors seem uniquely positioned to have a significant impact on the development or enhancement of team structures and staff relationships within a collaborative school. Educational collaboration and its relationship to school consultation as a structured planning, decision-making, and problem-solving process is described. Characteristics of a collaborative school and its organizational structures are identified. Roles and related skills the counselor can use in providing leadership in developing and implementing collaborative teams in the school are articulated.     

HIGH SCHOOL DRIVER EDUCATION USING PEER TUTORS,DIRECT INSTRUCTION,AND PRECISION TEACHING

The authors investigated the combined effects of direct instruction and precision teaching by peer tutors in a high school driver education curriculum. Learners (N = 4) included students with intellectual and learning disabilities and students without disabilities. Peer tutoring was associated with immediate increases in correct responding and a simultaneous and rapid deceleration of errors. Three learners passed the written tests in the driver education classroom, obtained driver's licenses, and produced similar or better driving records than students who did not require assistance. This program is being continued and expanded by school personnel without assistance from the authors.     

Innovation in health care teams

While there has been much research on organizational innovation and on individual creativity, little research has examined the social psychological factors predicting work group innovation. In this exploratory study, using a new measure of innovativeness, eight health care teams were studied. Members of five ‘innovative’ and three ‘traditional’ teams (comprising 43 health care professionals) completed questionnaires examining aspects of individual and group work experience, and produced inventories of innovation reports. On the basis of these inventories, team innovativeness was rated by experienced health care professionals. Team innovation was predicted by climate for innovation (in particular tolerance of diversity), team commitment and team collaboration. The content of health care team innovations was also examined to reveal current trends.     

The use of structural equation modeling in generative research: Toward the design of a preventive intervention for bereaved children

Describes a generative study of processes which may lead to symptomatology in children who have experienced the death of a parent. Based on existing literature, four putative mediating variables were identified: parental demoralization, family warmth, negative family events, and positive stable family events. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to compare several potential causal models involving these variables. The results were most consistent with a model in which bereavement was not directly related to the child symptomatology, but rather its effects were transmitted through these four mediational mechanisms. The implications of the results of the structural modeling for the design and evaluation of preventive interventions are discussed briefly.     

Age differences in the recall of actions and cognitive activities: The effects of presentation rate and object cues

Summary In studies of activity memory, age differences have been found in the recall of cognitive activities (sustained mental activities that subjects solve during acquisition) but not in recall of Subject-Performed Tasks (one-step actions that subjects enact during acquisition). To understand the reasons for the discrepant findings, both types of item were included in a study examining the effects of object cues, rate of presentation, and aging. Variations in presentation rate or use of objects did not account for the different findings on the two item types. Even when presentation rate and object cues were matched, larger age differences were found for recall of cognitive activities than of SPTs. Age differences were also affected by the interaction of item type, presentation rate, and the presence of objects during encoding. To identify the variables controlling age differences, more analysis is needed of the features of activities to be remembered.     

Age-related decline in prospective memory: the roles of cue accessibility and cue sensitivity.

In two experiments the authors evaluated the hypothesis that age-related decline in prospective memory reflects momentary lapses of intention (MLIs), and explored two factors, cue sensitivity and accessibility, that may contribute to MLIs. MLIs were reliably greater than zero in Experiment 1, indicating that performance fluctuated over the course of the task. Analysis of the response latency data (RL) revealed that older adults demonstrated elevated RL for missed prospective cues and were much slower to respond correctly to prospective cues than younger adults. These findings indicate preserved cue sensitivity in later adulthood and an age-related decline in cue accessibility. Experiment 2 demonstrated that cue sensitivity did not result from an orienting response to the perceptual novelty associated with the prospective cues.     

State Regulations and the ACA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice: Oil and Water for the Substance Abuse Counselor

State regulations for substance abuse treatment facilities showed low compliance ratings for counselor, supervisor, and assessor qualifications when compared to the ACA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice (American Counseling Association, 1995). Similarly, few of the 34 participating states required treatment outcome studies or referenced licensed professional counselors. The authors raised concerns for treatment quality and accountability.     

The domain specificity and generality of overconfidence: Individual differences in performance estimation bias

One hundred twenty-three college students performed a knowledge assessment task and a game of motor skill in which they had to predict their performance before each block of trials. There was a bias in the direction of overconfidence on both tasks, even though the latter involved the motor domain, did not require the use of numeric probabilities, and allowed predictions to be made by using an aggregate judgment made in a frequentist mode. An analysis of individual differences indicated that there was considerable domain specificity in confidence judgments. However, participants who persevered in showing overconfidence in the motor task—despite previous feedback revealing their overconfident performance predictions—were significantly more overconfident in the knowledge calibration task than were participants who moderated their motor performance predictions so as to remove their bias toward overconfidence. The latter finding is consistent with explanations of overconfidence effects that implicate mechanisms with some degree of domain generality.