Traveling Without a Destination? A Dialogical Analysis of Professional Identity Construction Among Australian Double Degree Psychology Students

This paper presents findings from a study of Australian double degree psychology students’ construction of professional identity. Dialogical self theory was used as a framework to conceptualize professional identity construction and to identify the I-positions, the voices of others, and the relationships between these voices within the self. Results revealed that conflicting voices were heard within the self, creating tensions in students’ professional identification. Moreover, it seems that when trying to navigate their study journeys, students rely on several, sometimes unintentional, value orientations to assist them in moving forward from these struggles. Findings are considered in the context of further developing dialogical self theory and the enhancement of curricula that focus on multiprofessional and interdisciplinary learning and teaching.     

The relationship between career growth and organizational commitment

This research examines the relationship between employees' career growth and organizational commitment. Career growth was conceptualized by four factors: career goal progress, professional ability development, promotion speed and remuneration growth, while organizational commitment was conceptualized using Meyer and Allen's (1997) three component model. Survey data, collected from 961 employees in 10 cities in the People's Republic of China, showed that the four dimensions of career growth were positively related to affective commitment, and that three of the facets were positively related to continuance and normative commitment. Only three of eighteen two-way interactions among the career growth factors affected organizational commitment, suggesting that the career growth factors influence commitment in an additive rather than a multiplicative manner.Results focus on how career growth can be used to manage organizational commitment.     

The matching relation and situation-specific bias modulation in professional football play selection

The utility of a quantitative model depends on the extent to which its fitted parameters vary systematically with environmental events of interest. Professional football statistics were analyzed to determine whether play selection (passing versus rushing plays) could be accounted for with the generalized matching equation, and in particular whether variations in play selection across game situations would manifest as changes in the equation's fitted parameters. Statistically significant changes in bias were found for each of five types of game situations; no systematic changes in sensitivity were observed. Further analyses suggested relationships between play selection bias and both turnover probability (which can be described in terms of punishment) and yards-gained variance (which can be described in terms of variable-magnitude reinforcement schedules). The present investigation provides a useful demonstration of association between face-valid, situation-specific effects in a domain of everyday interest, and a theoretically important term of a quantitative model of behavior. Such associations, we argue, are an essential focus in translational extensions of quantitative models.     

Correlates of professional versus organizational withdrawal cognitions

Using a more rigorous research design than previous studies, results generally supported the discriminant validity of professional withdrawal cognitions (PWC) versus organizational withdrawal cognitions (OWC). The sample consisted of 226 medical technologists tracked over a five year period, and the research design used pre- and post-measures of PWC and OWC. Attitudinal professional commitment had a stronger negative relationship to subsequent PWC versus OWC, while gender discrimination and organizational support had stronger relationships to subsequent OWC versus PWC.     

工程中利益冲突问题研究

首先在详细分析工程中利益冲突已有定义的基础上,本文从不同角度提出了一种不同的定义。然后,分析了利益冲突的构成,并列举了利益冲突的情形。接着,分析了利益冲突的伦理问题,并提出解决方法。最后介绍了美国工程社团以及大型企业有关利益冲突的伦理章程和行为规范。     

Who are they and What do they Need: Characterizing and Supporting the Early Childhood Assistant Teacher Workforce in a Large Urban District

Scholarship and policy emphasize strengthening the early childhood education (ECE) workforce, but this work neglects a large segment of the workforce: assistant teachers. This study responds to gaps in knowledge by examining the demographic characteristics, qualifications, professional supports, and workplace experiences of assistant teachers (N = 120) in a representative sample of ECE centers (n = 35) in a large urban district. In addition to studying assistant teachers’ receipt of in‐service training and coaching, we draw from social network theory to investigate the professional support assistant teachers provide and receive via their collegial networks. We use a variance decomposition approach to explore how on‐the‐job supports, such as training, coaching, and networks, contribute to assistant teachers’ work‐related stress and job satisfaction—two key predictors of ECE teacher attrition. Results indicate that few ECE staff members seek assistant teachers for work‐related advice. Coaching is found to be an important contributor to assistant teachers’ job satisfaction; professional advice via collegial networks is a meaningful but under‐examined source of support for stress and job satisfaction. We consider implications for supporting and retaining assistant teachers and propose next steps for research on this understudied segment of the teaching workforce.     

Qualité des débats sur le travail : la confiance en question

The National Interprofessional Agreement of 2013 on the quality of life at work shows a willingness to institute discussion spaces allowing employees to express themselves on the quality of their work. This questions the modalities of the discussion for those who initiate it as well as for those who participate in it, trust seeming to be indispensable in order to allow for transparency and debate. The authors propose to take a further step from the analysis of a professional controversy by identifying the need to share common assumptions among peers to develop debates.     

Factors influencing child witnesses

This study elucidates how professional intervention can influence children's abilities to report accurately about abuse experiences. Based on knowledge acquired through previous research and the present case study, the study shows how methods of information acquisition used during preliminary investigations can negatively affect child reports. The case study emanates from a larger study of 193 allegedly sexually abused children. Examination of these police interviews shows that 55 children were interviewed more than once and their reports were exposed to possible professional influences before and during the preliminary investigation. The case study reveals the inadequate management of a child witness. The findings indicate that police officers and psychologists should avoid suggestive interventions and co-ordinate their efforts during the preliminary investigation in order to safeguard the children's as well as the suspects' legal interests. This paper points out the need for implementing interview interventions that can enhance children's abilities to report accurately about abuse experiences.     

Questionner le sens dans l’accompagnement d’une transition vers la reconversion professionnelle : une recherche-intervention

This contribution is based on a research-intervention contracted by a team of researchers in social psychology with a local authority. It focuses on the support of public sector workers, declared medically inapt to occupy their current position, during the transition that is redeployment period. The contributions of two theoretical approaches allowing to understand this question are first crossed: existential psychology relative to the life-span career counseling on the one hand, and psychology of the socialization, underlied by the activities of personalization mobilized in the construction of meaning on the other hand. Secondly, these approaches are discussed in the light of the experience of support workshops developed and implemented in the field of this research. These workshops, organized in four sessions, aim to help participants to objectify the questions inherent in this professional transition and to give meaning to their life course and their experience of the situation. The exchanges made it possible for the participants to share views on issues such as the situation of inaptitude, their relationships to work or the redeployment package itself. These workshops give evidence of the possibility of supporting subjects, concerned by ruptures in their life, towards the development of a capacity to act and to transform their environment and highlight the psychosocial effects of a support designed as a social support for the change of professional activities.