Occupational Information Systems and the Department of Labor

In eight states, counselors and people making career choices now have a new tool for getting the information they need. Occupational information systems are delivering up-to-date, accurate information about occupations and local employment conditions in Alabama, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin. Funded with seed money from the U.S. Department of Labor's National Occupational Information Service, the development of these systems is guided by these key principles: cooperation between producers and users of occupational information; intensive information-development efforts that maximize the use of available information; systematic information delivery; user services, training, and marketing efforts; and cost sharing and eventual self-support.     

TWO-TO-ONE versus ONE-TO-ONE STUDENT-TEACHER RATIOS IN THE OPERANT VERBAL TRAINING OF RETARDED CHILDREN1

The operant training of two retarded children simultaneously on a picture-naming task was investigated as an alternative to the more commonly reported one-to-one student-teacher ratio. In Experiment I, two conditions were compared in which the children received primary reinforcement on a fixed-ratio schedule for responding correctly on prompt and probe trials in a standardized picture-naming procedure. During the “Group Condition”, the experimenter alternated from one child to the other after each primary reinforcement, after each incorrect response, after each response omission, and after each 10-sec period in which a child did not “attend” (by making a trial-initiating response) when it was his or her turn to be worked with. During the “Individual Condition”, the experimenter worked with only one child, and presented trials whenever the child made attending responses. Experiment I demonstrated that the Group Condition was more efficient than the Individual Condition in terms of total correct responses and total pictures learned per unit of training time. Incidental learning was also found in that the children learned some of each others' pictures as well as their own, thus indicating a further advantage of the larger student-teacher ratio. In Experiment II, an attempt was made to equate the two conditions, except for the presence of two children in the Group Condition, by ignoring the child in the Individual Condition for brief periods equal to those that occurred in the Group Condition when the experimenter presented training trials to the other child. The results demonstrated that the greater efficiency of the Group Condition was not due to the manner in which training time was allocated to the two members of a group. It also replicated the finding that the children learned some of each others' words in the Group Condition.     

Personality,husband-wife similarity,and Holland's occupational types

The present investigation had two purposes. The first was to investigate the generalizability of the theorized personality characteristics of men within Holland's occupational types to groups of men typed by their actual vocations instead of their vocational interests. The second purpose was to investigate the extent to which the wives of men in each of the occupational groups were similar to their husbands in terms of personality characteristics. Multiple discriminant analysis of the groups' 16PF scores resulted in significant overall groups differentiation and in two significant discriminant functions labeled tender-mindedness and self-confidence. The second finding was that Social and Enterprising men were significantly similar to their wives on personality dimensions consistent with the defining characteristics of the respective Holland groups. Implications of the present results and suggestions for future research are presented.     

The impact of exposure to nontraditional vocational role models on the vocational role preferences of five-year-old children

During a two-week period, 17 kindergarten children in an experimental group were exposed to nontraditional role models and curricular materials and a control group, consisting of 22 kindergarten children, was exposed to a curriculum unrelated to vocational or sex roles. A comparison of the pretest and posttest scores of the two groups, using a t-test for correlated means, indicated that neither group made a significant change in their vocational role preferences. The data indicated that following the treatment, the experimental females were slightly less traditional (p < .24) while the experimental males were more traditional (p < .09). These findings are related to developmental and socialization factors. Implications for further research and for family life education are presented.     

Long-term effects of prior experience in attenuating amnesia

In Experiment I, prior experience with passive-avoidance training followed by latent extinction was given 1, 3, 5, or 15 days before criterion (re) training and an amnesic treatment. It produced nearly complete protection from retrograde amnesia at the three shorter intervals; at the longest interval, amnesia was present but less severe than in a control group without the familiarization. In Experiment II, prior experience was given 1, 5, or 15 days before a noncontingent shock and an amnesic treatment. Evidence of a reactivation of memory was obtained only at the longest interval. Thus, familiarization and reactivation seem to represent different processes. The results are interpreted as consistent with explanations stressing the disruption of retrieval in retrograde amnesia.     

Listener ratings of severity for specific disfluency types in children

This study investigated whether some types of disfluency are perceived as more severe than others and if listener groups differ in their perception of severity for some disfluency types. Three normal speaking children were trained to produce eight types of disfluency and one sample of fluency. The experimental tape, consisting of three examples for each of the eight disfluency types and of fluency, was presented auditorily to 40 judges divided into four groups of 10 each: parents of stutterers, parents of nonstutterers, speech clinicians, and elementary school teachers. The judges rated the disfluency and fluency on a 15-point severity continuum, divided into four nominal categories of Fluent, Normal Disfluency, Mild Stuttering, Moderate Stuttering, and Severe Stuttering. Results showed that although listener groups did not significantly differ in their severity ratings, the specific types of disfluency did differ significantly. The type of disfluency emitted by a speaker is apparently more salient in perceiving and judging disfluency than the type of listener making the judgment.