A model for counselor-student-teacher involvement

School counselors need to adopt some new supplementary roles in order to get more involved in the classroom learning situation. The Inquiry Role Approach (IRA) offers such a program for counselor involvement. The IRA establishes teams of students who work with the counselor and the teacher in the regular classroom. Individual referrals to the counselor are accepted as part of the classroom routine. Preliminary evaluation of the program suggests that certain attitudes and social skills are enhanced, and the counselors benefit by dealing directly with more students in a classroom situation.     

Persuasibility and the power of belief

Recent empirical and theoretical developments suggest that clients who genuinely believe in the effectiveness of counseling are likely to improve regardless of the validity of the counselor's approach. This improvement is based on a “psychological placebo effect” that arouses client expectations for improvement and provides clients with additional security and self-confidence to deal with life more effectively. These considerations are discussed in the context of placebo reactivity, client susceptibility to persuasion, and counselor expectations for client improvement.     

A Four-Day Diagnostic-Therapeutic Home Visit in Turkey

The author has presented his experiences during a four-day home visit in Istanbul, where he was invited for the purpose of making a diagnosis and recommendations for the care of a 20-year-old English-speaking Turkish patient.
His preparations are described, as are the details of his conduct of the evaluation. His findings and recommendations have been presented. Emphasis is placed throughout on the importance of the examiner acquainting himself in detail with his patient's cultural, social, and ethnic milieu. The way in which such information contributed to a clearer understanding of the patient's psychological difficulties is demonstrated.
A Greek and a Turkish psychiatrists' comments on the article are published together with a final note by the author.     

MOTIVATIONAL COMPONENTS OF TEST TAKING

The first phase of this research effort describes an effort to directly measure the attitudes and opinions of employment test takers toward the tests they just took; the instrument is called the Test Attitude Survey (TAS). Nine factors were developed which reflect test takers' expressed effort and motivation on the test, the degree of concentration, perceived test ease, and the like. Several studies were conducted showing that TAS factors were significantly sensitive to differences in test types and administration permitting the inference that the TAS possessed construct validity. The second phase of this study tested several propositions and hypotheses. In one study, it is shown that the applicants report significantly higher effort and motivation on the employment tests compared to incumbents, even when ability is held constant. A second study showed that a small but significant relationship exists between TAS factor scores, test performances, and the person factors. Moreover, some of the racial differences on test performances can be accounted for via the TAS factor scores; it is observed that after holding these TAS factors constant, racial differences on the employment tests scores diminished. In a third study, very limited evidence was found for the incremental and moderating effects of these attitudes, but there were several limitations to the study associated with small sample sizes, unknown reliabilities in the criterion scales, and so forth. Discussion focussed on the potential practical applications of the TAS instrument and factor scores. It is suggested that further research could have some utility in this domain.     

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF IN-BASKET PERFORMANCE MEASURES

The in-basket test is a frequently used assessment tool for predicting job performance and, to a lesser extent, as a technique for research and development in various human resource applications. While the in-basket test has obvious attractive features for application in the business setting, there is a great degree of uniqueness in each application and relatively little research focusing on critical issues involved in construction or evaluation. In this paper, the literature focusing on the psychometric properties of in-basket measures of performance are reviewed and evaluated. The compiled evidence provides only modest support of the usefulness of the in-basket test as a measurement tool.     

AN EXAMINATION OF THE EFFECTS OF USING BEHAVIOR CHECKLISTS ON THE CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF ASSESSMENT CENTER DIMENSIONS

Although research has established the criterion-related validity of assessment centers for selection purposes, the construct validity of dimension ratings has not been demonstrated. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the influence of retranslated behavior checklists on the construct validity of dimension ratings for two assessment center exercises. Assessor use of behavior checklists increased the average convergent (i.e., same dimension across exercise) validity from .24 to .43 while decreasing the average discriminant (i.e., different dimension within exercise) validity (.47 to .41). Behavior checklist sums were moderately correlated with corresponding dimension ratings and demonstrated a comparable level of construct validity. It is suggested that using behavior checklists may improve dimension construct validity by reducing the cognitive demands placed on raters.     

CORRECTING THE 16PF FOR FAKING: EFFECTS ON CRITERION-RELATED VALIDITY AND INDIVIDUAL HIRING DECISIONS

The effects of correcting a personality measure for faking were evaluated within an organizational context. Two possible repercussions of score correction were studied using the 16PF personality inventory: the effect on criterion-related validity and the effect on individual hiring decisions (i.e., which applicants would or would not be hired). Results indicated that correction for faking had little effect on criterion-related validity. However, depending on the selection ratio, correction of scores would have resulted in different hiring decisions than those that would have been made on the basis of uncorrected scores. Implications for organizations using personality measures for selection and recommendations regarding the use of faking corrections are discussed.