Professionalism in career guidance and counselling – how professional do trainee career practitioners feel at the end of a postgraduate programme of study?

This paper explores the extent to which students on a vocational postgraduate programme identify with characteristics and competences that define a professional career guidance and counselling practitioner. Literature suggests professionalism in careers work is characterised by a focus on the needs of the client with the practitioner in a facilitative role. Competences are often couched in developmental terms, with practitioners moving from inexperienced to experienced. Students identified the most valued characteristics as adherence to professional values and ethical standards with an emphasis on person-centred practice. They recognised that competence was a developmental process, characterising themselves as at an early stage on completion of their course. Supporting the client took precedence over issues such as advocating for the profession, supporting employers and social responsibility. Generally, students saw completing a programme of study either as a beginning to a process of development of professionalism or as part of their professional development.     

Becoming Racially Literate About Data and Data-Literate About Race: Data Visualizations in the Classroom as a Site of Racial-Ideological Micro-Contestations

Data visualizations are now commonplace in the public media. The ability to interpret and create such visualizations, as a form of data literacy, is increasingly important for democratic participation. Yet, the cross-disciplinary knowledge and skills needed to produce and use data visualizations and to develop data literacy are not fluidly integrated into traditional K–12 subject areas. In this article, we nuance and complicate the push for data literacy in STEM reform efforts targeting youth of color. We explore a curricular reform project that integrated explicit attention to issues pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation, representation, visualization, and communication of data in an introductory computer science class. While the study of data in this unit emphasized viewing and approaching data in context, neither the teacher nor the students were supported in negotiating the racialized context of data that emerged in classroom discussions. To better understand these dynamics, we detail the construct of racial literacy and develop an interpretative framework of racial-ideological micro-contestations. Through an in-depth analysis of a classroom interaction using this framework, we explore how contestations about race can emerge when data visualizations from the public media are incorporated into STEM learning precisely because the contexts of data are often racialized. We argue that access to learning about data visualization, without a deep interrogation of race and power, can be counterproductive and that efforts to develop authentic data literacy require the concomitant development of racial literacy.     

When I First Learned about Retirement: Financial and Retirement Concept Recognition among College Students

It has long been argued that financial literacy education should begin in childhood or adolescence, but little is currently known about the ages at which individuals come to understand basic retirement and financial planning concepts. The primary goal of the present investigation is to provide data that reflect the reported ages at which key general and technical retirement planning concepts are acquired. A secondary goal is to identify individual difference dimensions—including one’s financial literacy level and early parental learning experiences—that are associated with the age at which key concepts are reportedly acquired. Retrospective reports obtained from a sample of 646 college students revealed that an understanding of general concepts was widespread and took place during the pre-teen and early teenage years. Understanding of the technical concepts was suboptimal, however. Nearly half of the sample were unfamiliar with most of the technical terms. Among those who were familiar with the technical concepts, learning reportedly occurred later in adolescence. Understanding of both sets of concepts was linked to higher financial literacy scores and saving lessons learned during childhood from one’s parents. Results have implications for financial literacy intervention programs designed to target children, adolescents, and young adults.     

Maternal Beliefs,Adolescent Perceived Maternal Control and Psychological Competence in Poor Chinese Female-Headed Divorced Families

Based on the data of 337 female-headed divorced families living in poverty in Hong Kong, the relationships among maternal beliefs (Chinese cultural beliefs of familism, maternal expectations of children’s future, maternal attribute of children’s achievement to effort), adolescents’ perceived maternal control and adolescent psychological competence (indexed by beliefs in the future, clear and positive identity, and resilience) were examined. Results indicated that adolescents’ perceived maternal control mediated the influence between maternal beliefs and adolescent psychological competence in poor female-headed divorced families in Hong Kong. With the paucity of research on family beliefs and indigenous parenting practice, the present study underscores the importance of maternal beliefs and maternal control on nurturing adolescent psychological competence in Chinese divorced families facing adversity, which contributes to the development of Chinese familial model of resilience. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Examining Relationships Among Ethnicity,PTSD, Life Functioning,and Comorbidity in Female OEF/OIF Veterans

There is much literature on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and male combat veterans, but little on PTSD by gender and ethnicity among women combat veterans. We examine ethnic differences in PTSD and comorbid disorders among 37 Hispanic, 27 White, and 15 Native female Operaton Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) combat veterans. Participants completed the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, Axis I (SCID-Axis I and II), Life Events Checklist (LEC), Military Stress Exposure Questionnaire (MSEQ), and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36). Hispanics differed from Whites in having less education, more trauma exposure, higher levels of PTSD, mood disorder comorbidity, and poorer physical and emotional functioning. Natives differed from Whites with more trauma exposure, higher levels of PTSD, poorer emotional functioning, and higher rates of Cluster B PDs.     

Social aggression and power relations among preschool children

Social agonism and dominance relations were assessed in two preschool groups. An average of 30 hours of observational data was obtained for each group during free-play over a six-week period. A Social Agonism Inventory describing specific initiation and response behaviors during episodes of social conflict was used to code agonistic activity. Dyadic interactions were examined to determine whether the resolution of agonistic interactions conformed to a linear model of social dominance. Although there were group differences in the relative frequency of different forms of conflict, systematic comparison of agonistic wins and losses re vealed similarly rigid and linear dominance structures at both preschools. The relation of aggression and dominance was empirically examined by comparing the initiation and receipt of agonism by high vs low dominance status children. Higher dominance status children engaged in more agonistic interactions, but a majority of these interactions were directed toward other high-ranking group members.     

Using message framing to promote acceptance of the human papillomavirus vaccine.

OBJECTIVE: Use of message framing for encouraging vaccination, an increasingly common preventive health behavior, has received little empirical investigation. The authors examined the relative effectiveness of gain-versus loss-framed messages in promoting acceptance of a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV)-a virus responsible for virtually all cases of cervical cancer. DESIGN: Undergraduate women (N = 121) were randomly assigned to read a booklet describing the benefits of receiving (gain-framed message) or the costs of not receiving (loss-framed message) a prophylactic HPV vaccine. After reading the booklet, participants indicated their intent to obtain the HPV vaccine. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: A 5-item composite representing intentions to obtain the HPV vaccine. RESULTS: The effect of message framing on HPV vaccine acceptance was moderated by risky sexual behavior and approach avoidance motivation. A loss-framed message led to greater HPV vaccination intentions than a gain framed message but only among participants who had multiple sexual partners and participants who infrequently used condoms. The loss-frame advantage was also observed among participants high in avoidance motivation. CONCLUSION: Findings highlight characteristics of the message recipient that may affect the success of framed messages promoting vaccine acceptance. This study has practical implications for the development of health communications promoting vaccination.     

Implementing fairness in racial-group assessment requires assessment of individuals

Replies to comments by R. J. Griffore and D. A. Newman et al on the author's original article on test validity and cultural bias in racial-group assessment. Helms notes that, given that within-group variance exceeds between-groups variance, racial groups are probably simulating a psychological construct that is more strongly related to individuals' test scores than to their respective racial group's mean test scores. Therefore, models of individual differences, such as her Helms individual-differences (HID) model, that remove construct-irrelevant racial variance, are needed to make the testing process fair at the level of individual African American, Latino/Latina American, and Native American test takers. Her HID model is intended to focus attention on identifying the factors responsible for the racial-group-level differences and, thereby, assist test users to look beyond presumed physical appearance (e.g., racial-group designations) for explanations of individuals' cognitive abilities, knowledge, or skills test scores.