Impact of a College Student Academic Mentoring Program on Perceived Parental and Teacher Educational Involvement

This article examines the hypothesis that academic mentoring of college students improves perceived parental and teacher educational involvement. College students were randomly assigned to a 1‐year academic mentoring program (protégés, n = 150) or a control group (n = 167) and completed questionnaires before, during, and after the intervention. Protégés perceived greater levels of parent and teacher educational involvement than did participants from the control group. However, the impact of the mentoring program on perceived parental involvement was found only among students who reported a secure relationship with their parents. Additional analyses suggest that some of these improvements were related to quality of the working alliance between mentors and protégés and to supportive behaviors exhibited by mentors during the intervention.     

Some Thoughts I Can't Help Thinking

Specific reactions to the Heppner and Anderson, Keeney and Morris, and Gelso articles are offered. Also, some general thoughts on counseling research are provided.     

BENEFIT COVERAGE AND EMPLOYEE COST: CRITICAL FACTORS IN EXPLAINING COMPENSATION SATISFACTION

This research examined the joint effects of benefit coverage and the costs borne by employees on multiple dimensions of compensation satisfaction. Information regarding pay and benefit practices was collected by interviewing personnel specialists and reviewing policy and procedure documents in eight organizations. At a later time, satisfaction data were collected from employees via mail surveys. The results indicated that satisfaction with benefits increased with improved coverage and decreased with higher employee costs. Employees were particularly sensitive to variation in the cost of health insurance. Also, for respondents possessing accurate information about actual coverage levels, the relationship between coverage and satisfaction was more pronounced. For the organizations studied here, salaries and benefits were being administered using compensatory allocation rules. Salary levels were negatively correlated with the levels of benefit coverage, and the various components of the compensation systems covaried in complex ways. The methodological implications associated with this research are emphasized and suggest that the interpretability of much of the past research devoted to employee benefits has been compromised.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUPERVISORY- AND SELF-APPRAISALS OF EXECUTIVE PERFORMANCE

There has been increased use of self-appraisal programs for evaluating the performance of executive personnel. Because objective measures of performance are rarely available or adequate for this level of personnel, ratings are often relied upon. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between supervisory-perceptions and incumbent self-perceptions of the performance of executive personnel. The rationale for this study was that the relationship between supervisory-ratings and self-ratings has important implications for the usefulness of self-appraisal programs. If self-evaluations are to be effective in enlisting a person's cooperation and participation, it seems essential that his perceptions agree with those of his superior. This study was designed to identify those areas of executive performance where there might be significant amounts of disagreement. Knowledge of these problem areas would then be useful in conducting self-appraisal programs. Supervisory-ratings and self-ratings on 27 performance variables were obtained for the top executives of a large manufacturing corporation. A measure of promotability was used as the criterion and analysis of variance and correlation analyses were carried out to attain the objectives. The major conclusions of the study were: (1) Executives tended to rate themselves higher than they were rated by their supervisors, (2) Disagreement in the relationship of the two sets of ratings was found in several areas, (3) Executives who tended to overrate themselves were found to be the ones who were considered least promotable on the basis of a criterion measure of success in the organization.     

Distribution of probability assessments for almanac and future event questions

This study examines the distribution and calibration of probability assessments given to general knowledge questions and question concerning future events. Two experiments revealed that: (1) People use certainty responses less frequently in response to questions concerning then-future events than to general knowledge questions even when the then-future event questions are easier than the general knowledge questions. (2) Indonesian students previously thought to have little grasp of probabilistic thinking, are able to give realistic probability assessments for then-future events. Cultural and task influences on our findings are discussed in relation to a procedural model of the processes involved in answering a question. We conclude that, as most applications of decision analysis involve future uncertainty, research in probability assessment should concentrate on questions concerning future events rather than on general knowledge questions.     

Murphy's Law and Counseling

Counselors like anyone else need to find as much humor as possible. Following are some humorous laws encountered by counselors.     

Computerized Career Information Systems on the College Campus: A Low-Cost,Do-It-Yourself Approach

For a variety of reasons, computerized career information systems have not made any significant impact on college or university campuses. This article attempts to describe an economically feasible approach to designing computerized systems. The actual design and development of such a system on the campus of Virginia Tech University is outlined. We include a discussion of development rationale, cost, program offerings, and potential applications.     

THE PERCEPTIONS AND USAGE OF STATISTICAL POWER IN APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

We first assess the current level of statistical power across articles in seven leading journals that represent a broad sample of applied psychology and management research. We next survey the authors of these articles to examine their perceptions and usage of statistical power analysis. Finally, we examine the perceptions and usage of power analysis in a survey of authors of regression-based research appearing in leading journals. Findings from the assessment of power and surveys of researchers indicate that power analyses are not typically conducted, researchers perceive little need for statistical power, and power in published research is low. We conclude by discussing implications of low power for the field and recommending avenues for improving researchers' awareness and usage of statistical power.