Farm Families in Career Transitions: Descriptive Characteristics and an Intervention

Characteristics of farm family members involved in workshops that are designed to assist them in developing career plans and making transitions to other careers are described. Age, sex, educational level, and career change characteristics of workshop participants are presented. Vocational identity scores using My Vocational Situation, interest patterns based on the Self-Directed Search, and 6-month follow-up data are also presented to describe the farm family members served through this intervention. My family went back four generations on this piece of land. Farming wasn't a job; it was a way of life. I couldn't go to the auction. I couldn't see it all being taken. I feel like such a failure.     

MATHEMATICS,MODELS AND ZENO'S PARADOXES

A version of nonstandard analysis, Internal Set Theory, has been used to provide a resolution of Zeno's paradoxes of motion. This resolution is inadequate because the application of Internal Set Theory to the paradoxes requires a model of the world that is not in accordance with either experience or intuition. A model of standard mathematics in which the ordinary real numbers are defined in terms of rational intervals does provide a formalism for understanding the paradoxes. This model suggests that in discussing motion, only intervals, rather than instants, of time are meaningful. The approach presented here reconciles resolutions of the paradoxes based on considering a finite number of acts with those based on analysis of the full infinite set Zeno seems to require. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the classical and quantum mechanics of performing an infinite number of acts in a finite time.     

Values Preferences by Gender for Nontraditional College Students Between 1992 and 1982

This study compared gender trends for self-reported work values of 384 nontraditional college students in 1982 and 335 different nontraditional college students in 1992. Results measured by D. Nevill and D. E. Super's (1989) Values Scale indicated that female values preferences moved toward Altruism and Variety and away from Autonomy and Advancement. Male values preferences remained relatively constant, except for a significant drop in Aesthetics. The most important finding was that there were many more similarities than differences in men's and women's values preferences for both 1982 and 1992. The top 3 rankings for both years were identical: Economic Security, Achievement, and Ability Utilization.     

THE EFFECTS OF VARIABILITY AND RISK IN SELECTION UTILITY ANALYSIS: AN EMPIRICAL COMPARISON

To date, utility analysis research has derived point estimates of the expected utility value for human resource management programs or interventions. Utility estimates are usually quite large, but they fail to reflect the size and shape of the utility distribution. The present study investigated utility estimate variability for the selection utility of using the Programmer Aptitude Test to select computer programmers in a medium-sized computer manufacturing organization. Utility calculations incorporated financial/economic factors as well as employee flows over time. The distributions for each utility parameter were empirically estimated, and these distribution estimates were combined through a Monte Carlo analysis to yield a distribution of total utility values. Monte Carlo results were compared to three other risk assessment approaches: (1) sensitivity analysis, (2) break-even analysis, and (3) algebraic derivation of the distribution. Results suggest that the distribution information provided by the Monte Carlo analysis more completely described the variability and riskiness associated with the expected utility value. Future research suggested by these findings is discussed.     

Client Hospitalization: Issues and Considerations for the Counselor

The author discusses the process of hospitalizing clients both voluntarily and involuntarily. Legal, ethical, and procedural aspects of the commitment process are examined, and the counselor's role in this process is highlighted.     

Counseling Mexican Americans: A Multimodal Approach

The author describes a culturally sensitive and relevant therapeutic framework for nonminority and minority counselors working with clients of Mexican-American heritage. Lazarus's multimodal approach provides the basis for this framework. Prior to the presentation of the framework, the current status of Mexican-American mental health service delivery and use is examined.     

East and West: Transpersonal Psychology and Cross-Cultural Counseling

In this article, the authors examine cross-cultural counseling (specifically Western counselor-Eastern client) within a transpersonal psychological framework. A meta-model is presented that allows counselors to adopt attitudes that transcend cultural differences. The benefit for counselors would be a superordinate framework in which various, specific counseling strategies could be better understood.