High-risk students in junior college: a special program

The college student who is considered a “high academic risk” offers to teachers, counselors, and curricula a great challenge. Most “bright” students have to exert little effort to achieve academic successs; however, there are other students for whom learning comes only with great personal effort, as well as great patience and concern on the part of their instructors, who can also benefit from higher education. The results of Project speed , representing one attempt to do something with high-risk students, strongly suggest that developmental programs can have a measurably positive influence upon their participants.     

COMMENTARY

Salzman's commentary initially examines two theoretical considerations of the genesis of substance abuse. He elaborates on the hypothesis that changes in the family precede abuse and relates it to conceptual similarities with research on schizophrenic families. He points out that the proposed research that focuses on ongoing processes rather than causality also fails to identify factors leading to the selection of symptomatology. The author concludes with comments on his work in the area of psychoactive drugs and group functioning and suggests that the inclusion of the following methodologies in research design might be instructive: (a) the combining of self, group, and experimenter observations; (b) the comparison of family interactional patterns when the drug-abusing member is under chemical influence and when he is not; and (c) informal observations and discussions focused on the family's perception of the research as well as on task performance.     

Employee Perceptions of Perpetrators and Acts of Workplace Violence in Colleges and Universities

Workplace violence has captured the attention of both the popular press and the scholarly literature, leading to a greater awareness of its existence in society. One area that has been overlooked by the research is how employees perceive various types of workplace violence acts, as well as different types of perpetrators. This study examined employee perceptions of a variety of workplace violence acts and different perpetrators at a large, public university in the midwestern United States. The results indicate that employees perceive various types of workplace violence acts and different perpetrators in a variety of ways. Based on these findings, recommendations on how to improve awareness are suggested.     

Unemployment: The Living Death?

Unemployment can be viewed as a “living death” because the majority of unemployed persons participating in this study went through five stages that parallel the five stages through which a terminally ill patient passes. Stress caused by unemployment resulted in a loss of income and a loss of the individual's self-image.     

The Buros Institute of Mental Measurements: Commitment to the Tradition of Excellence

This article reviews briefly the history of the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements and then provides an overview of the expanded mission of the Buros Institute. The origins of the Mental Measurements Yearbook series are highlighted, along with discussions of goals and the evolving structure of the Yearbook series. In addition, the bibliographic reference series, Tests in Print, and the specialized monograph series are placed in historic perspective. Goals of the “new” Buros Institute of Mental Measurements, located at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, are also presented.     

Conflict Behavior in Clinical Couples: Interpersonal Perceptions and Stable Outcomes

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between a couple's perceptions of each other while engaged in a conflict situation, and their management of the conflict itself. One-hundred-eighty couples undergoing family therapy interacted in a mixed-motive game that served as the standard conflict situation. Each couple's interactions were classified into one of four categories, depending upon how they managed this conflict. The interpersonal perceptions of each group were then examined, and several differences were found. Couples who resolved the conflict in a cooperative manner perceived each other as cooperative and themselves expressed more appeasing intentions than any other group. Couples who managed the conflict in a mutually destructive manner perceived each other as competitive and themselves expressed the highest level of exploitative and defensive intentions. Couples who developed either a dominant-submissive relationship, or those who waivered between cooperating and competing and failed to attain any stable solution to the conflict, also differed from each of the other groups.     

Measuring Clients' Cognitive Competence in Research on Counseling

Counseling is defined as an activity concerned with the development of cognitive competence in clients. As part of the overall movement in research on counseling toward methodological pluralism and triangulation, it is suggested that researchers of counseling effects adopt methods of processing and representing clients' cognitive structures. Such methods can help to capture some of the uniquely rich personal and subjective aspects of the change process in counseling. A variety of methods for accessing and representing cognitive structures are presented, some of which are illustrated in a brief case report. The advantages and limitations of the methods presented are discussed.