PROJECT A VALIDITY RESULTS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PREDICTOR AND CRITERION DOMAINS

A predictor battery of cognitive ability, perceptual-psychomotor ability, temperament/personality, interest, and job outcome preference measures was administered to enlisted soldiers in nine Army jobs. These measures were summarized in terms of 24 composite scores. The relationships between the predictor composite scores and five components of job performance were analyzed. Scores from the cognitive and perceptual-psychomotor ability tests provided the best prediction of job-specific and general task proficiency, while the temperament/personality composites were the best predictors of giving extra effort, supporting peers, and exhibiting personal discipline. Composite scores derived from the interest inventory were correlated more highly with task proficiency than with demonstrating effort and peer support. In particular, vocational interests were among the best predictors of task proficiency in combat jobs. The results suggest that the Army can improve the prediction of job performance by adding non-cognitive predictors to its present battery of predictor tests.     

Double Gestures: Feminist Critiques and the Search for a Useable Practice

This essay is a critical review of two recent collections, Feminism and Foucauk: Reflections on Resistance, edited by Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby and Feminism as Critique: On the Politics of Gender, edited by Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell. While the collections differ in their manner of addressing the critical sources that have inspired them—the former relying upon a single theorist, the latter attempting to move through some of the philosophical history that constitutes our present theoretical terrain—both attempt to think through and thus revisudize some of the categories of difference which we have inherited. Though the best essays from these collections are celebrated for demonstrating how “feminism as critique” can work to move us toward a clearer and more inclusive feminist theory, questions are raised about what the inattention to race in these volumes suggests about our own role in the construction of power and knowledge, and the erasures that help to secure them both.     

Should We Have Children? A Decision-Making Group for Couples

The authors designed and conducted a group for couples deciding whether to have children or remain childfree. Four couples participated in various group exercises and activities. The group experience was positive for most members; in relation to this decision they gained an understanding of their own needs and attitudes, of their spouses' positions, and of the issues involved. Outcomes varied: One couple decided to wait to make the decision, two decided to have children later, and one decided to probably remain childfree.     

Technology and Work: Future Issues for Career Guidance

Advances in communication and microcomputer technologies are having a dramatic impact on our personal and vocational lives. This article focuses on possible consequences for career guidance professionals.     

Competency-Based Employment-Counseling Model: Local Office Implementation

This article describes the early stages in the implementation of the competency-based employment-counseling model in a local employment office in Kentucky. Preliminary steps taken at both the state and local levels are discussed. The actual application of the model in the Louisville local office is then presented. The conclusions provide several key factors to successful initial implementation.     

Naturalistic Research

Naturalistic research is offered as an alternative to the more familiar hypothesis-testing methods of research. Naturalistic research is disciplined inquiry conducted through personal, long-term contact between the researcher and the object of research. Rather than arbitrarily operationalizing the variables and specifying the hypotheses in advance of contact with the case, the meanings held by persons involved with the case and the effects of the context on the case are allowed to emerge from the data and thus become the objects of study. In this article the assumptions of the methodology of naturalistic inquiry are contrasted with those underlying traditional hypothesis-testing methods.     

Cross-Cultural Family Therapy — A Malaysian Experience

This case report illustrates the possibilities and difficulties of family therapy in a non-Western culture. Malaysia is a truly multiracial society with diverse ethnic groups having different religions, languages, and cutural patterns of relationships. In addition, the nation as a whole, and each ethnic group in particular, is in the process of cultural change, which produces stress on the traditional family's style of relationships. The therapists working in this culture are often crossing religious, linguistic, and socioeconomic barriers, as well as encountering the cultural pressures placed upon families. We will formulate some general problems in cross-cultural psychotherapy, discuss some aspects of this specific culture and family with a case report, and offer some suggestions for handling problems in family therapy under these circumstances.     

Counseling the aging

In a culture preoccupied with youth, the aged are often relegated to a secondary and neglected status. Mary Buckley's article asks us to take another look at the aged and realize that, contrary to our prejudices, personal growth and creative living do not end with the beginning of retirement. She describes her counseling style with the aging, which is designed to provide an atmosphere of understanding and sharing in order to foster their growth.     

RECRUITMENT EVALUATION: THE CASE FOR ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF APPLICANTS ATTRACTED

We argue that assessing attraction outcomes is critical to systematic improvement of recruitment effectiveness and offer a new assessment framework that can be adapted by all organizations for any position in any staffing scheme. These methods (a) permit outcomes of different recruitment processes–attraction, status maintenance, and gaining job acceptance–to be evaluated independently, (b) support concurrent evaluations of attraction outcomes, (c) enable cost-benefit analyses of alternative recruitment processes, (d) allow meaningful comparisons of applicants from different recruitment events, and (e) support more aggressive management of the recruitment function than is otherwise possible. An illustrative example demonstrates these methods using attraction outcome data from 5 organizations' recruitment of associate engineers and shows that not only do attraction outcomes differ, the value of those differences can be substantial.     

Functions of Christian Prayer in the Coping Process

This research project sought to examine the multiple functions that prayer serves in the coping process for members of Christian groups. We used concept mapping to describe and organize a small group of participants' perceptions concerning the functions of prayer when coping with personal difficulties, as well as examined the frequency and perceived effectiveness of these prayer functions. The number and variety of items generated by participants indicates that prayer can be used in multiple ways to deal with personal problems. Inspection of these items and the resulting concept map yielded three bipolar dimensions that describe a variety of prayer functions: approach/avoidance; internal focus/external focus; and deferring/self-directing. The arrangement of items also corresponded roughly to a three-factor structure found in several existing coping measures. Participants reported that the most effective prayer functions involve seeking guidance and expressing gratitude .