MASS COMMUNICATION AND BELIEF CHANGE: A TEST OF THREE MATHEMATICAL MODELS

Three mathematical models of communication and belief change were proposed and tested: a proportional change model, a belief certainty model, and an accumulated information model. A quick correlational check of the three models suggested that the accumulated information model was the superior with the belief certainty model being the most inferior of the three. Stronger support for the accumulated information model obtained using a more stringent test: a nonlinear bivariate regression which produced visual “plots” of empirical data that nearly duplicated the visual “plots” produced by the theoretical model. The accumulated information model states that belief change is proportional to the discrepancy between the original belief and the belief communicated in the message, and inversely proportional to the amount of information which the receiver has about the topic at the time the message is received. The belief certainty model was the most inferior of the three indicating that the degree to which a receiver is certain in conviction is unrelated to the communication-belief change relationship.     

THE CALL AND THE GIFTED IN CHRISTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: A CONSIDERATION OF BRIAN ROBINETTE'S CRITIQUE OF JEAN‐LUC MARION

In his recent article, ‘A Gift to Theology? Jean‐Luc Marion's ‘Saturated Phenomena’ in Christological Perspective’, Brian Robinette has critiqued Marion's phenomenology for confining theology to a one‐sided approach to Christology, one that stresses only the passive, mystical reception of Christ. To correct this imbalance, Robinette brings Marion into dialogue with those more active Christologies or ‘prophetical‐ethical’ liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrez, Johann Baptist Metz and others that stress a life‐praxis focused on confronting evil and suffering. In this essay I am arguing that Robinette has not fully developed the ‘logic’ of Marion's phenomenology of the ‘call and the gifted’, in which both a passive and an active element are operative. I explore more fully that very dynamic phenomenological process of the call‐and‐the‐gifted as developed in Marion's work Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness. Once viewed in Christological perspective, and especially in light of Christ's death and resurrection, Marion's phenomenology entails an ethical trope consistent with the mission of Christ as rendered in Scriptural revelation, and thus the gap between Marion's work and the prophetical‐ethical theologies of Gutierrez and Baptist Metz becomes narrowed.     

The Legal Rights of Students with Disabilities in Christian Schools

The adoption of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) and the Education for All Handicapped Children's Act, now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), have had a major impact on the delivery of services for children with special needs.

In light of the legal issues surrounding the delivery of special education to children who attend Christian schools, the remainder of this article is divided into two parts. The first section opens with an overview of relevant litigation pertinent to special education before reviewing Sections 504 and the IDEA, along with its regulations, as they apply to religious schools. The second part offers practical suggestions for educators in Christian elementary and secondary schools as they work to serve children with special needs.     

THE BRITISH ABILITY SCALES SPEED OF INFORMATION PROCESSING SUBTEST: WHAT DOES IT MEASURE?

Summary . Recent theory and research has focused on the relationship between speed of performing elementary cognitive operations and general intelligence. The developers of the British Ability Scales (BAS) included the Speed of Information Processing (SOIP) subtest as a measure of mental processing speed. To test the validity of the SOIP subtest, a group of 12-year-old children were given the BAS short-form, including the SOIP subtest, and a series of electronically timed reaction time (RT) tasks. Correlations between RT and SOIP were higher than correlations between RT and other BAS subtests, suggesting convergent and discriminant validity. A hierarchical factor analysis of the data shows that the BAS SOIP subtest is related more to speed of apprehension (RT) than to speed of making the motor response, or movement time (MT).     

Explaining Helping Relationships Through Learning Theories and the Question of Human Agency

It is argued that counselors too readily accept the mechanistic terminology of learning theories to account for client behavior, when in fact such terminology is not capturing what really takes place in the consulting room. Following a definition of agency, classical causation theory is presented. Psychology has patterned itself after Newtonian precepts, which rely upon material and efficient causation. As an antidote to this narrow usage, the concept of telosponsivity is presented. A telosponse is behavior carried out “for the sake of” purposes, and draws from the meaning of formal and final causation. Oppositional meanings in experience are what makes telosponsivity both possible and, indeed, necessary. A review of one counseling theory is carried out, and it is then shown how the mechanistic biases of psychology have been incorporated into this theoretical account. Corrective theoretical measures, in line with an agential view of behavior, are then recommended.