Factors Associated with Engagement in Family Therapy

Thirty-eight families who continued in conjoint family therapy were compared on a variety of antecedent variables to 13 families who dropped out. Three potentially important predictors of continuance in family therapy were found: (a) which spouse initiated the search for treatment; (b) the level of authoritarianism in the spouses; and (c) family socioeconomic status. Families that dropped out of treatment tended to be of lower socioeconomic status and contained spouses who had more highly authoritarian attitudes as measured by the California F Scale ( 1 ). Families that contained a severly disturbed member had a poor rate of engagement in treatment, but if both spouses in such a family were low in authoritarianism, the engagement rate was 100 per cent. When both spouses initiated the search for treatment, engagement was also nearly perfect. The difficulty in engaging families from the lowest socio-economic class may be attributed partly to the authoritarian attitudes of the husband.     

Developing and Using Educational and Psychological Tests and Measures: The Unificationist Perspective

This article presents a critical review of traditional testing practices and offers the unificationist perspective as the next logical step in the evolution of psychological and educational measurement. Building on the notion that any activity involving testing should be unified under the rubric of the scientific method, the unificationist view is defined and contrasted to traditional test validation strategies. Implications for test development and for the use of tests and measures in counseling (e.g., interest inventories, personality measures) are delineated from the unificationist perspective.     

The Delivery of Manpower and Supportive Services to Rural Areas

This study identifies problems encountered by state employment service agencies and other organizations in the delivery of equitable manpower and supportive services to rural and migrant workers and recommends solutions to these problems.     

INVESTIGATION OF BIAS IN JOB EVALUATION RATINGS OF COMPARABLE WORTH STUDY PARTICIPANTS

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of knowledge of current pay levels and perceived job gender on subsequent job evaluations. The sample consisted of 53 job evaluators in professional and scientific positions at the University of Iowa who had previously received 20 hours of training in job evaluation and participated in over 100 hours of job evaluations during the implementation of a comparable worth pay system. The hypothesis that jobs with high (manipulated) pay levels would receive higher evaluations than jobs with low (manipulated) pay levels was confirmed, although the effects were smaller than those reported in other studies. In addition, evidence of a pro-female bias was found ( p < .08) in the job evaluation ratings. Implications of these findings for job evaluation research and practice are discussed.