College admissions assistance by secondary school counselors

Information was collected over a three-year period dealing with college admissions assistance received by 2,500 (27 percent) of the entering freshmen at the University of Massachusetts. This information concerned the timing of various student decisions about college admission, sources of information, and reactions to the assistance provided by high school counselors. Entering freshmen perceived the counselor as being a helpful source of specific information but having little effect on their decisions to continue in higher education. The authors make interpretations related to the University, and they compare the results to Kerr's similar study in 1961.     

How to avoid developmental effects in free recall

Immediate and final free recall was tested in children from grades 4, 6, and 8, using lists of words and lists of tasks which the children performed. The expected developmental effect was found in both the immediate and the final free recall of the words, but there were no significant differences in the recall of the tasks as a function of age. These data are discussed within the Flavell-Brown framework of strategic and nonstrategic memory tasks.     

How One Family Perceives Another: The Relationship Between Social Constructions and Problem-Solving Competence

This paper delineates a rarely studied but important family process: how a family perceives and understands the relationships in other families it knows. We hypothesize that these perceptions of other families are fundamental components of a family's shared construing of its social world. Families differ in how they perceive other families, specifically, and in their approach to construing or apprehending their social world, generally. We have hypothesized that these general differences also play a crucial role in shaping the style and competence of family problem-solving. A family's approach to any problem depends upon how it construes or interprets the social context of that problem. Using these general concepts of family life, we construct specific hypotheses linking family problem-solving and interfamily perception. We describe methods for measuring both family problem-solving and how a family perceives other families. Findings confirm our major hypothesis: A family that searches for underlying and subtle patterns in a problem-solving situation will develop a more differentiated and organized conception of other families.     

Counseling Parents of Handicapped Children: An Empathic Approach

Counseling is often perceived as a process one reluctantly goes through when life's problems become too overwhelming to handle alone. One such situation frequently occurs when parents become aware that they have a handicapped child. Prescott and Hulnick hold that essentially all of life's experience, including parenting a handicapped child, can be perceived as an opportunity for personal growth. Given this orientation, the truly empathic counselor assists parents in learning the skills and attitudes needed to deal effectively with their child and to learn to transform their own pain into caring and love.     

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE REVIEW AND DEVELOPMENT INTERVIEWS: REPLICATION AND EXTENSION1

Eight performance review interview characteristics were related to 7 interview outcomes. Several of these individual variables had been examined in previous research. Two hundred seventy nursing personnel described their last review interview. Five of the interview characteristics were related to most of the outcomes, replicating earlier research as well as adding new findings. Implications for improving the conduct of appraisal interviews in organizations are offered.     

A META-ANALYSIS OF TEAMWORK PROCESSES: TESTS OF A MULTIDIMENSIONAL MODEL AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH TEAM EFFECTIVENESS CRITERIA

Drawing from Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro (2001) , we proposed that narrowly focused teamwork processes load onto 3 higher-order teamwork process dimensions, which in turn load onto a general teamwork process factor. Results of model testing using meta-analyses of relationships among narrow teamwork processes provided support for the structure of this multidimensional theory of teamwork process. Meta-analytic results also indicated that teamwork processes have positive relationships with team performance and member satisfaction, and that the relationships are similar across the teamwork dimensions and levels of process specificity. Supplemental analyses revealed that the 3 intermediate-level teamwork processes are positively and strongly related to cohesion and potency. Results of moderator analyses suggested that relationships among teamwork processes and team performance are somewhat dependent on task interdependence and team size.     

COMMUNICATION CONCERNS OF PRESERVICE AND INSERVICE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

The purposes of this study were: (1) to identify the communication concerns of prospective, student, and inservice teachers and (2) to determine differences in the concerns of the three groups with regard to a three-phase conceptualization: concern with self, task, and impact. Findings were that: (1) prospective teachers expressed more self than task or impact concerns, (2) student teachers expressed more task than impact concerns, (3) inservice teachers expressed more impact than self or task concerns, and (4) prospective teachers expressed more self concerns than student or inservice teachers, student teachers expressed more task concerns than prospective or inservice teachers, and inservice teachers expressed more impact concerns than prospective or student teachers.