THEOLOGY AS THE QUEEN (BEE) OF THE DISCIPLINES?

Abstract. Once Queen of the Medieval court of sciences, dethroned theology may be able in our time to play a strategic servant role in rightly humiliating, elevating, and ordering the disciplines, in gadflying like a mutant honeybee, generating surprise and serendipity through the intermediacy of social science, and in offering ethical homing direction to the disciplines in their applied endeavors.     

Overt responding in computer-based training

This experiment compared the extent to which students learned facts included in computer-based-training frames that required an overt response to those that did not. Frames included two types of facts: Some facts had one word missing which had to be supplied by the student (active facts). Other facts had no missing words and required no overt response (passive facts). Each student completed four 14-fact modules in random order. Two of the modules contained frames with all active facts. Each frame in the other two modules contained one active and six passive facts. Paper pretests and posttests showed that students learned twice as many facts when all facts in the module were active than when only one in seven were active. The modules that included passive facts required one-fifth the time to complete than those with only active facts. Students learned more facts per minute of training in one of the two modules that included passive facts than in the two modules with only active facts.     

Live supervision in the postmodern era of family therapy: Issues,reflections, and questions

This article asserts that the family therapy field is approaching an epistemological shift from structuralism and positivism to postmodernism and relativism. The confluence of these movements: feminism, constructivism/constructionism, and cultural relativism is cited as a major impetus for the shift. Live supervision is examined within the context of this transformation, with a discussion of implications for the future.     

Development of knowledge bases and the reliability of a decision support system for behavioral treatment consultation for persons with mental retardation: The Mental Retardation-Expert

The development of expert and decision support systems requires the collection, organization, codification, and storage of a body of specialized knowledge. The development, using reconstructive methods, of two such knowledge bases, the first containing the current scientific literature and the second containing an expert’s knowledge, is described for an automated decision support system, the Mental Retardation-Expert. This system provides practitioners with assistance in the treatment of aggressive, self-injurious, and destructive behaviors displayed by individuals with mental retardation or developmental disabilities. The average interobserver reliability of the expert knowledge base ranged from 92.5% to 95.0% when calculated across four clinicians’ assessments of 31 abstracted cases.     

The effects of exposure to different sources of sexual information on sexual behavior: Comparing a “sex-expert system” to other educational material

Sexpert, an expert computer program designed to counsel couples on their sexual relationships, was evaluated. Eighty-one heterosexual couples were assigned to one of three experimental manipulations (Sexpert, video, and self-help book) or a control condition. Daily sexual behavior monitoring forms and structured retrospective reports served as measures of baseline and post-manipulation behavior. Daily monitoring of sexual behavior failed to show significant changes occurring after the manipulations. However, retrospective data concerning the postmanipulation period show that compared with the control, the Sexpert, video, and book manipulations had a significant positive impact on couples’ sexual behavior, communication, and learning about sexuality. Sexpert, video, and book were similarly evaluated, except that Sexpert was evaluated as more engaging. In addition, subjects retrospectively reported positive changes in communication, relationship satisfaction, and sexual behavior during the baseline period. This suggests that daily behavioral monitoring is intrusive and may confound the variables measured by it.     

Evaluating student achievement with a relational database

Commercial database programs such as dBase and Paradox, although developed originally for business applications, are versatile and powerful tools that can be used for an academic purpose such as evaluating student performance. They can be used to write and store test questions, assemble and print classroom or on-line laboratory tests, and calculate grades, test statistics, and so forth. Databases are flexible, unlike textbook “ancillary” test bank programs that are inextricably bound to the strictly linear format and brief shelf life of specific textbook editions. A prototypical relational database program is described, with which an instructor can produce tests based on generic terms adapted from Boneau’s (1990) study of psychological literacy, as well as on behavioral learning objectives adapted from Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of educational objectives. As a relational database, the program integrates terms, objectives, questions, tests, and test scores, and avoids unnecessary data duplication and waste of computer storage space.