Résumé Construction for a Counseling Position

Faculty members of the Counselor Education Department at Auburn University were asked to complete the Job Résumé Questionnaire (Feild & Holley, 1976). Comparisons of responses were made between faculty and a control and experimental group. The experimental group was given data on faculty opinion and asked to construct a résumé. The control group was given no data but completed the questionnaire. Correlation coefficients yielded low positive relationships between faculty and student responses to the questionnaire. A higher positive relationship existed, however, between faculty responses to the questionnaire and actual items appearing on the résumés constructed by the experimental group.     

ITEM BIAS INDICES BASED ON TOTAL TEST SCORE AND JOB PERFORMANCE ESTIMATES OF ABILITY

Researchers (e.g., Ironson, 1982; Tenopyr, 1990) have suggested that item bias investigators equate subgroups on external criteria such as job performance rather than total test scores before considering subgroup passing rates on test items. In a study comparing these two approaches to studies of item bias, we found little evidence of bias using total test score as the estimate of overall examinee ability, but nearly all items were biased in comparisons of white and African-American subgroups on Numerical, Verbal, and Mechanical Reasoning tests and in male-female comparisons on a Mechanical Reasoning test when job performance was used to select "equally able" examinees. However, the use of job performance as the ability index is analogous to performance-based approaches to test bias (Hartigan & Wigdor, 1989; Thorndike, 1971) and directly equivalent to the Darlington (1971) and Cole (1973) test bias definition, the logical inconsistencies of which have been previously described (Hunter & Schmidt, 1976; Peterson & Novick, 1976). We conclude that performance matching as a basis of forming "equal ability" groups is inappropriate.     

Marketing Parochial Schools: Does Marketing Theory Contribute to Effective Practice?

Two earlier contributions have examined key issues addressing the marketing of parochial schools. Wrenn and Kotler (1993) propose that the marketing of church-related schools represents a case of social exchange activity. By contrast, Penner (1993) identifies two fundamental limitations to the application of marketing principles to parochial education, namely, role and function conflict. The present article seeks to consider the conceptual contribution of those two articles and to examine additional elements that are critical to the discussion but were not adequately addressed in the two prior articles. The article concludes by suggesting future research of potential relevance in the marketing of parochial education.     

Versatility,Openness to Experience,and Topical Diversity in Creative Products: An Exploratory Historiometric Analysis of Scientists,Philosophers, and Writers

Creative individuals are considered versatile when their achievements extend beyond their most commonly cited domain, thus indicating remarkable and varied interests and abilities. The present study examined the association between versatility and (a) the personalities of eminent creators and (b) the topical diversity of their creative products. The main sample consisted of 67 eminent scientists, creative writers, philosophers, and scholars drawn from the history of Western Civilization, with a subsample of 38 creators obtaining observer‐based scores on openness to experience. Versatile creators were found to have produced works with greater topical diversity than did their non‐versatile counterparts. In addition, topical diversity was positively associated with openness. These relationships varied according to the domain of creative achievement.     

Cinematic Creativity and Production Budgets: Does Money Make the Movie?

Although filmmaking requires substantial capital investment, it is not known whether cinematic creativity is positively correlated with the size of the film's budget. Therefore, budgetary impact was investigated in a sample of feature films released between 1997 and 2001. Although production costs were positively related to box office success (as measured by both first weekend and gross), such expenditures had no correlation with best picture awards and were negatively correlated with critical acclaim (as gauged by both film reviews and movie guide ratings). These divergent consequences could be partly interpreted in terms of how the budget and success criteria differentially correlated with what have been identified as the four creative clusters of filmmaking, namely, the dramatic, visual, technical, and musical.     

Aid Agencies: The Epistemic Question

For several decades, there has been a debate in the philosophical literature concerning whether those of us who live in developed countries are morally required to give some of our money to aid agencies. Many contributors to this debate have apparently taken it that one may simply assume that the effects of the work such agencies do are overwhelmingly positive. If one turns to the literature on such agencies that has emerged in recent decades, however, one finds a number of concerns about such agencies and the work they do that put that assumption in serious doubt. This situation raises a number of pressing questions, many of which have received little or no attention from philosophers. After articulating a number of those questions, I focus mainly on what I call the ‘Epistemic Question (for potential contributors to aid agencies)’: How can those of us who are not experts in international aid arrive at an estimate concerning the effects of the work aid agencies do that we have at least some good reason to believe accurate?     

Faculty Perceptions of College Creativity Courses

If you were going to teach a college-level course in creativity, would you be interested in what other instructors believe about such courses? Would you like to know their views about planned outcomes, evaluation and course content? These are some of the areas addressed in this report. The study orginated discussions at the First National Conference on Creativity in American Colleges and Universities.¹ The conference was promoted by the work of McDonough and McDonough (1987),² and was held in July of 1990 at the Alden B. Dow Creativity Center of the Northwood Institute in Midland, Michigan. It was an exciting opportunity for university-level teachers of creativity to get together and talk. To facilitate discussions, most participants brought with them copies of their course syllabi. Much of the ensuing discussion centered around the purposes of creativity courses, appropriate course experiences, required products, and the evaluation of student participation and learning. While the diversity of opinion of those present soon become clear, many participants were left questioning if the opinions heard and syllabi offered at this conference were representative of what was being done nationally. The present study is born from that question.     

The Structure of Family Perceptions Among Adolescents and Their Parents: Individual Satisfaction Factors and Family System Factors

This study examined the underlying structure of self-reports of family functioning by adolescents, mothers, and fathers (N of individuals = 360) from intact families. Participants completed a multidimensional self-report measure of family functioning, and their responses were entered into a factor analysis with the family as the unit of analysis (N of cases = 120). The results indicate two types of factors: individual satisfaction factors and family system factors. The findings are consistent with the view that different types of characteristics assessed in self-report measures of the family may be stored as different kinds of memories. The findings also provide preliminary data toward understanding the linkages between family system factors and satisfaction with the family based on family roles as adolescents, mothers, and fathers.