Teaching Abraham's Children

This study will explore the omission of the Tower of Babel narrative from middle and secondary school world history, world studies, and world geography textbooks and will consider what might be learned from inclusion of the story in the curriculum. A total of 17 textbooks are analyzed. The Tower of Babel narrative is examined within the context of the Book of Genesis, and The Epic of Gilgamesh.     

Travel: A Long-Range Goal of Retired Women

The authors surveyed retired persons (predominately women) with regard to their immediate, intermediate, and long-range activities following retirement. As predicted, leisure travel emerged as a frequent long-range goal for persons retired more than 5 years. The travel activity preferences of long-retired older women present challenges and opportunities to both researchers and marketers. Length of trips and frequency of trips have been predicted from regression models, with trip length in particular being well predicted by the problem of daily life hassles. A theoretical model of continued post-retirement travel is presented as a variant of Solomon's opponent process theory of affect (R. L. Solomon, 1980). The authors suggest that to the degree that places traveled to are varied and different, older people may remain stimulated and continue to enjoy retirement.     

Cognitive-behavioural health-promotion intervention increases fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity among South African adolescents: a cluster-randomised controlled trial

Rates of chronic diseases are high among Black South Africans but few studies have tested cognitive-behavioural health-promotion interventions to reduce this problem. We tested the efficacy of such an intervention among adolescents in a cluster-randomised controlled trial. We randomly selected 9 of 17 matched pairs of schools and randomised one school in each pair to the cognitive-behavioural health-promotion intervention designed to encourage health-related behaviours and the other to a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/sexually transmitted disease (STD) risk-reduction intervention that served as the control. Interventions were based on social cognitive theory, the theory of planned behaviour and qualitative data from the target population. Data collectors, blind to participants' intervention, administered confidential assessments at baseline and 3, 6 and 12 months post-intervention. Primary outcomes were fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity. Participants were 1057 grade 6 learners (mean age = 12.4 years), with 96.7% retained at 12-month follow-up. Generalised estimating equations revealed that averaged over the follow-ups, a greater percentage of health-promotion intervention participants than HIV/STD control participants met 5-a-Day fruit and vegetable and physical activity guidelines. The intervention also increased health-promotion knowledge, attitude and intention, but did not decrease substance use or substance-use attitude and intention. The findings suggest that theory based and contextually appropriate interventions may increase health behaviours among young adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa.     

The American Counseling Association Practice Research Network (ACA‐PRN): A New Research Tool

In an era of increasing accountability, there is a need to provide data on counseling outcomes. That is, there is a need to substantiate the claim that counseling works. This article describes the American Counseling Association Practice Research Network (ACA‐PRN), which is designed to provide data on evidence‐based counseling.     

The practice research network: Research into practice,practice into research

The purpose of the broader project on which this report is based was to utilize a Practice Research Network, an alternative to traditional clinical studies to 1) identify demographically one practice group, namely professional counselors in the United States, 2) describe their practice patterns, and 3) identify their client population and the efficacy of their clinical work through client outcomes based on actual client reports. This article describes the development of one such nation‐wide Practice Research Network (PRN) and provides some preliminary findings for each phase of the project. Use of the PRN model can help overcome the traditional “research to practice” gap and provide research results into community practice thus integrating outcomes measures into the daily practice of mental health professionals. During the early phases of this project, a software program was developed upon which the participating practitioners could identify the data elements within the parameters of the focus on their agreed‐upon research interests, enter data following client visits over time, and by comparing their own composite profiles and effectiveness with those of other participating practitioners who had clients presenting with similar diagnoses, could alter their own service delivery patterns, therapeutic interventions, or approaches while working with the clients and thereby improve the efficacy of their service. By participating, the practitioners benefited by access to downloadable and printable reports on profiles of 1) their specific clients, 2) their service delivery patterns, and 3) the outcomes or efficacy by their clients’ direct feedback. They were also able to compare these results with the composite data from other practitioners.     

Listening to Different Voices: Formation of Sanction Beliefs and Taxpaying Norms1

How do people form beliefs about sanctions and norms toward the legal system? Using data from a telephone survey with 1,200 Minnesota adult residents, we examine how income sources that provide an opportunity to avoid official detection shape the amount and sources of communication about IRS enforcement effectiveness. Individuals with economic exchanges that provide the opportunity to cheat without detection received significantly more information about tax issues and IRS enforcement, especially from co-workers. Although both family members and co-workers were major sources of tax information, individuals received more information about IRS enforcement effectiveness from co-workers than from family members. Communication with co-workers lowered the perceived likelihood of IRS detections for overstating deductions, lowered the perceived severity of informal sanctions for tax cheatings, and lowered the perceived fairness of tax laws and positive personal norms toward compliance with tax laws. In contrast, communication with family members enhanced the perceived fairness of tax laws and positive personal norms toward compliance with tax laws. These findings are interpreted in the framework of social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954). We discuss implications for the theory and research on the development of beliefs about enforcement systems and compliance with laws.     

Effects of wage inequities on work attitudes and performance

A replication and extension of the Adams and Jacobsen (1964) investigation of inequity theory was carried out using a 3 × 2 experimental design with three levels of compensation and two levels of qualifiedness. This design included an overcompensated condition in which the overpayment was not confounded with unqualifiedness, thereby allowing a comparison of differential predictions from inequity and expectancy theory. Comparisons of over and underpayment conditions were also made to test the differential threshold hypothesis of inequity theory. Attitudinal as well as performance data were collected to investigate the possibility of differing modes of inequity reduction.The major finding in the present study was that variations in manipulated perceptions of qualifiedness produced significant effects upon both quality and quantity measures of work behavior while induced variations in the amount of anticipated compensation only affected quality of work. The qualified conditions produced fewer pieces of higher quality. This finding was discussed from the point of view of inequity theory as well as an alternative “self-esteem” explanation.Differences in work performance across pay levels were nonsignificant with the exception of a work quality measure in which the overpaid qualified group produced significantly more errors than the standard pay-qualified group. Possible interpretations of these findings were discussed and a range of conditions which may affect perceptions of inequity were considered.     

Making the Transition from Prison to Community: Importance of Career Exploration

A criminal record is often a severe employment handicap. Through career counseling, employment counselors have a unique opportunity to enhance the likelihood that the ex-offender will successfully make the transition from prison to community. The results of a career program conducted with ex-offenders are described in this study.