When worlds collide: Engineering students encounter social aspects of production

To design effective and socially sensitive systems, engineers must be able to integrate a technology-based approach to engineering problems with concerns for social impact and the context of use. The conventional approach to engineering education is largely technology-based, and even when additional courses with a social orientation are added, engineering graduates are often not well prepared to design user- and context-sensitive systems. Using data from interviews with three engineering students who had significant exposure to a socially-oriented perspective on production systems design, this paper argues that engineering students may have difficulty integrating in their own practice the technology-based and the socially-oriented perspectives on production. To enhance engineering students' ability to create systems that integrate both perspectives, and to relieve the intense cognitive and emotional pain that can be experienced by students exposed to both perspectives but unable to reconcile them, this paper reinforces the importance of teaching students the meta skill, design. A design perspective can help students integrate varied, sometimes conflicting, perspectives, and reach beyond customer-defined constraints to consider workplace and social impact.     

Set and temporal integration

An experiment was conducted to explore the temporal structure of set formation in a complex reaction time (RT) task. On each trial an instruction [I-event] was given telling Ss whether identity of color or form on a separately presented alternative display (A-event) was the dimension relevant on that trial. The A-event consisted of a pattern of four colored forms. The two forms on one side were matched for color and on the other side for form. S’s task was to depress one of two keys. The correct key was homolateral to the matched relevant dimension. The basic independent variable was the time interval separating the I- and A-events (ISI). At short ISIs, RT wasa linear function oflSI with slope equal to -0.5. RT was independent of the order in which the events occurred at short ISIs, although at longer ISIs (3 sec) RT was longer when the A-event followed the I-event. Also, RT was shorter at short ISIs when color was the relevant dimension rather than form. although this difference disappearedat longer ISIs. The results were discussed in relation to information processing models and previous research dealing with partialadvance information.     

Effects of time and event uncertainty upon sequential information processing

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the psychological refractory period (PRP), a delay induced into the second of two reaction times (RT) when the interstimulus interval (ISI) is short. In Experiment1, time and event uncertainty were factorially varied by providing or not providing S with foreknowledge of the ISI and the order in which the two events would occur, respectively. ISIs of0, 50, 100, 200, and400 msec were used. Time and event uncertainty produced independent degradation of both RTs. Also, the second RT (RT ₂ ) was delayed at50 msec ISI when both time and event certainty were present. Experiment 2 attempted to replicate this latter finding using ISIs of0, 25, 50, 75, and100 msec. Delays in RT ₂ were found for the middle three values of ISI. These results were interpreted as supporting a modified single channel theory of the PRP.     

Tables for the determination of the significance of skewness and of the significance of the difference in the skewness of two independent distributions

Several of the more popular statistics texts used in psychology are reviewed with respect to their treatment of the measurement and interpretation of skewness. Some areas in psychology where measures of skewness of distributions may yield significant information are indicated. Tables of 1%, 2% and 5% points of moment measures of skewness and tables of the 1% and 5% points of the difference in skewness of two uncorrelated distributions are presented. These tables are approximations based on the approximate normality of skewness in large samples from normal populations. The limited confidence with which these tables can be used in the absence of exact knowledge of the distribution function of the underlying statistics is indicated.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are not to be interpreted as official War Department policy.     

Comparison of the Effects of Telephone Suicide Prevention Help by Volunteers and Professional Paid Staff: Results from Studies in the USA and Quebec,Canada

Research since the 1960s has consistently found that lay volunteers are better at helping suicidal callers than professionals. Yet, professional degrees are increasingly becoming requirements for helpline workers. In our first study, we conducted post hoc comparisons of U.S. helplines with all professional paid staff, all lay volunteers, and a mix of both, using silent monitoring and standardized assessments of 1,431 calls. The volunteer centers more often conducted risk assessments, had more empathy, were more respectful of callers, and had significantly better call outcome ratings. A second study of five Quebec suicide prevention centers used silent monitoring to compare telephone help in 1,206 calls answered by 90 volunteers and 39 paid staff. Results indicate no significant differences between the volunteers and paid employees on outcome variables. However, volunteers and paid staff with over 140 hours of call experience had significantly better outcomes. Unlike the United States, Quebec paid employees were not required to have advanced professional degrees. We conclude from these results and previous research that there is no justification for requiring that suicide prevention helpline workers be mental health professionals. In fact, the evidence to date indicates that professionals may be less effective in providing telephone help to suicidal individuals when compared to trained lay volunteers.