SCHOOL-WIDE LITERACY WORKSHOPS

A population of students attending a rural elementary school (grades one to five) in the state of Washington participated in literacy workshops for ten weeks. The literacy workshops took place during school time from 1:25 to 2:25, Monday through Thursday. There were a total of 21 groups (based on ability and age) ranging in size from 11 to 27 members. Comparing informal reading inventory scores using t-tests, significant effects were found for both boys and girls, as well as for all ethnic groups. Scores measuring attitude were not found to be significant.     

Stress, Religious Coping Resources, and Depressive Symptoms in an Urban Adolescent Sample

We surveyed low-income urban adolescents about their total exposure to urban stressors and their use of religious coping resources, specifically in the areas of social support, spiritual support, and community service opportunities provided by their congregations. Additionally, we assessed their current levels of depressive symptomatology. Among females, the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms was moderated by the use of spiritual support and community service opportunities. The moderating relationship was such that at low levels of stress, high usage of these resources protected against the development of depressive symptoms. At high levels of stress, however, the protective relationship was lost. Lastly, when the social support aspects of religious coping were statistically controlled, the moderation effect disappeared, suggesting that within this sample, the social support seeking aspects of the resources, rather than their religious nature, was responsible for the effects.     

ISSUES AND STRATEGIES FOR REDUCING THE LENGTH OF SELF-REPORT SCALES

Greater understanding of the complex interrelationships among work-relevant constructs has increased the number of constructs on organizational surveys. Good psychometric practice also dictates the use of multiple items per construct. The net result has been longer surveys. Longer surveys take more time to complete, tend to have more missing data, and have higher refusal rates than short surveys. Arguably, then, techniques for reducing the length of scales while maintaining psychometric quality are worthwhile. Little guidance exists on how to reduce the length of a multi-item scale and we argue that the most common technique, maximizing internal consistency, is problematic and should be avoided. We present a set of item "quality indices" to help conceptualize the competing issues that influence item retention decisions. Statistical analysis of an example case using these indices suggested that there are 3 key aspects of item quality to consider when reducing a scale. We describe strategies that can assist scale developers in using these 3 aspects of item quality when making scale reduction decisions.     

Finding the Best Person for the Job: The Search Committee and Affirmative Action

The role of the search committee in the hiring process is ambiguous and as diverse as the institutions where it is employed. Those institutions using a search committee need to be aware of the expectations, proper functions, and limitations involved. Persons agreeing to serve on such a committee need to be properly educated and informed on specific aspects of the assignment that might present problems as the work progresses. This article attempts to delineate the duties of such a committee and raises questions that need to be considered before the committee is organized.     

Integrating Personal and Career Counseling: A Challenge for Counselors

In recent years career counseling has often been viewed as separate and distinct from personal counseling, ignoring a long tradition in the career development field that has consistently recognized the importance of personality factors in the process of choosing and maintaining a career. This paper argues for the use of an eclectic career counseling model that embraces both personality and career development theories. The model requires the counselor to be able to move back and forth between the active and directive role of the career counselor and the facilitative and exploratory role of the personal counselor. A case is presented to demonstrate its application and implications for counseling and training are discussed.     

Cultural and ethnic influences on love and attachment

Recently, theorists have begun to speculate about the nature of passionate and companionate love. Evolutionary psychologists have tended to emphasize the pan-cultural nature of passionate love. Historians have stressed the fact that, in different historical eras, people's attitudes toward love, sex, and intimacy have varied widely. Cross-cultural researchers contend that, even today, societies differ greatly in their attitudes toward love. In this study, 124 men and 184 women from four ethnic backgrounds were asked if they were currently in love and how passionately and companionately in love they were. The four groups differed, as predicted, in their general orientations toward life. European-Americans were the most individualistic, Japanese-Americans and Pacific Islanders were intermediate in individualism/collectivism, and Chinese-Americans were the most collectivist. Nonetheless, in the specific area of love, the various American ethnic groups did not differ significantly in the likelihood of being in love, nor in the intensity of the passionate love (PL) or companionate love (CL) they felt. In all ethnic groups, men's and women's adult attachment styles predicted romantic feelings and experiences. The anxious were the most likely to be in a love relationship, and they scored the highest on the PL scale; avoidants scored lowest. The secure scored the highest on the CL scale; avoidants scored the lowest.     

Equity and marital satisfaction over the family life cycle

Marital satisfaction and perceptions of global marital equity were assessed in a sample of 373 Australian husbands and wives drawn from four phases of the family life cycle: preparenthood, childrearing, launching, and the empty nest. For wives only, satisfaction levels across successive phases described the U-shaped curve predicted from previous research. Sex differences emerged in perceptions of marital equity: During childrearing and the empty nest, more wives than husbands experienced equity; and in all phases except preparenthood, inequitable marriages were more likely to produce overbenefit for husbands and underbenefit for wives. For the sample as a whole, and for the preparenthood and childrearing groups individually, marital satisfaction was predicted both by the relative level of benefit a respondent gained from marriage, and by how closely the balance of exchange in the marriage matched strict equity. During launching, however, relative benefit eclipsed strict adherence to the rule of equity as a predictor of satisfaction, whereas during the empty nest phase, strict equity eclipsed relative benefit. Possible explanations for these life-cycle variations are discussed.     

Research: Perceived Employability of Applicants Labeled as Offenders

Experience, as well as the literature, shows that persons labeled as criminal offenders are at a disadvantage when seeking employment. In an effort to learn more about the nature and severity of this bias, a research study was conducted. Results revealed a clear and systematic bias against offenders in general, regardless of relative qualifications.