Social Need,Public Response: The Volunteer Professional Model for Human Services Agencies and Counselors

This article describes a model process of assessment and integration that allows community agencies and professional counselors to engage in more effective volunteer activity.     

A WITHIN SETTING EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE SITUATIONAL SPECIFICITY HYPOTHESIS IN PERSONNEL SELECTION

The situational specificity hypothesis of selection procedure validity makes two predictions. The first is that variation in observed validities across settings is caused by real differences in what constitutes job performance. Validity generalization studies to date have provided disconfirming evidence for this prediction by showing that the observed variation is due to statistical and measurement artifacts. The second prediction is that if the situation (i.e., the organization, the setting, the job, the test and the criterion) is held constant, then validity findings will not vary from study to study. This article tests this prediction empirically using data from a unique series of studies reported by Bender and Loveless (1958). The results are contrary to the situational specificity hypothesis and consistent with the hypothesis that variation in observed validities is due to statistical and measurement artifacts that are unrelated to situations and settings. It is concluded that both major predictions of the situational specificity hypothesis have now been empirically disconfirmed.     

Promoting Student Adjustment to College: A Counseling Technique Utilizing Humor

A procedure utilizing humor during guided imagery has been devised to assist the adjustment of people to life demands. The humorous imagery situation technique activates an adaptive sense of humor useful in promoting healthy, psychological adjustment.     

THE FUTURE OF CRITERION-RELATED VALIDITY1

As a result of rejection by personnel psychologists of the erroneous law of small numbers and of the adoption of correct inferential procedures, the future of criterion-related validity promises to be bright. Probable future developments include: (a) widespread appreciation of the low statistical power characteristic of small samples; (b) rejection of the traditional belief that validities are situationally specific; (c) widespread validity generalization based on new methods; (d) research demonstrations that rational estimates of validity are often superior in accuracy to empirical estimates; (e) widespread acceptance of research findings showing that single-group and differential validity by race are artifactual rather than substantive in origin and that test unfairness by race is a nonproblem; (f) increased application of decision-theoretic dollar utility analyses to selection programs; and (g) progress in the establishment of general principles and theories about trait-performance relations in the world of work.