Equipping the Equippers: The Pedagogical and Programmatic Implications of The Christians' Callings in the World Project

When five theological schools realized (a) their graduates affirmed vocation as central to their theology and practice, yet (b) the parishioners of their graduates nevertheless did not feel called, they knew they had to do something. For six years, faculty teams from these schools conducted a variety of experiments in pedagogy, curriculum reform, and program development in order to train their graduates to equip all of God's people to claim and live their vocational identity in the world. This article introduces the identified challenge and necessary theological and pedagogical shift and then describes five of those experiments in greater detail.     

Evidence for time-based models of free recall

Is memory temporally organized? According to temporal distinctiveness models of memory, temporally isolated items should be better remembered than temporally crowded items in free recall tasks. Here, we tested this class of model by varying the temporal isolation of items either predictably (Experiment 1) or unpredictably (Experiment 2) in a free recall task. In both experiments, item recall probability increased as a function of the temporal gaps both before and after the item. The results are taken as support for temporal distinctiveness models of memory, in which items are represented and recalled in terms of their positions along a temporal dimension.     

Out with the old, in with the new: More valid measures of switch cost and retrieval time in the task span procedure

Two experiments provided new measures of switch cost and retrieval time in the task span procedure. In Experiment 1, subjects were given lists of six task names to remember, followed by six targets on which to perform the tasks named in the list. The lists contained alternations and repetitions, and switch costs were estimated by comparing reaction time (RT) on alternation and repetition trials. The experiment also included memory span and single task conditions, so switch costs could be estimated by subtracting the sum of the RT in those conditions from the task span RT, as in the original report (Logan, 2004). The data suggested that the original measure of switch cost was invalid and that the new measure was preferable. In Experiment 2, subjects performed each task on the list twice. Retrieval was required on the first but not on the second trial in each pair. Retrieval time was estimated by comparing the RT on trials that required retrieval with trials that did not require retrieval. This measure was more valid than the RT in the memory span condition of Experiment 1, which was used in the original report.     

Aging and the role of working memory resources in visuospatial attention

Visuospatial attention has been shown to be robust to the effects of increasing age. Nonetheless, models linking individual differences in working memory capacity to attentional performance suggest that older adults may experience disruptions in visuospatial attention under conditions of resource load. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of age and concurrent working memory load on two tasks that have been proposed to require posterior attentional processes. The findings suggest that loading working memory resources selectively disrupts performance on a nonintegrated Stroop task, whereas cue utilization remains intact. In addition, imposing a working memory load delays the deployment of visuospatial attention in both experiments. Regarding the effects of age, findings suggest that older adults can effectively perform both attentional tasks despite working memory load. Age differences did emerge in the time course of cue utilization. Findings point to the resilience of visuospatial attention in aging, even under conditions of significant cognitive load. We discuss these results and their implications for models postulating a role for working memory capacity in attentional behaviors.     

Positive vs. negative switching barriers: the influence of service consumers' need for variety

• In this study, we deal with the existing debate related to the establishment of switching barriers retaining customers in the relationship with a provider. In particular, we demonstrate that ‘positive’ switching barriers (relational benefits) play a greater role that the ‘negative’ ones (switching costs and availability and attractiveness of other providers' offers) in determining customer satisfaction and retention. On the other hand, we include customers' need for variety in the proposed model, in order to demonstrate that a higher level of this psychological trait will lead to a lower perception of the existence of switching barriers. The hypotheses proposed have been tested for a services context on a sample of 800 individuals, using the technique ‘Partial Least Squares’ (PLS). Our findings lead to some interesting managerial implications.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.