An Ecological View of School Counselor Ratios and Student Academic Outcomes: A National Investigation

The effect of student‐to‐school‐counselor ratios on academic outcomes has been widely studied, yet few researchers have taken a multilevel approach. Using the nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study: 2009 dataset, the authors found ratios were significantly associated with student grade point average (GPA) and graduation. Attending a Title I school also was associated with students’ GPA, advanced placement/international baccalaureate credits earned, and postsecondary course taking. The authors discuss implications for advocacy and practice, contextualizing their findings within an ecological framework.     

Perfectionism and School Counselors: Differences in Stress,Coping, and Burnout

The authors examined perfectionism and its association with perceived stress, coping processes, and burnout in a sample of 298 practicing school counselors. Latent profile analysis based on measures of perfectionism supported a 3‐class model made up of adaptive perfectionists, maladaptive perfectionists, and nonperfectionists. Among these groups, the authors found significant differences in perceived stress, coping processes, and burnout. Implications for the school counseling profession are discussed.     

Evaluation of a Health Careers Program for Asian American and Pacific Islander High School Students

The authors evaluated a health careers program in a U.S. urban public high school. After small subgroups of the original sample were removed, participants included 162 Asian American and Pacific Islander students. Analyses of covariance indicated that, compared with the comparison group, the treatment group reported significantly higher levels of social support, school engagement, interest in learning, vocational expectations, and ethnic identity. Implications for multicultural counseling in schools are discussed. Los autores evaluaron un programa de carreras sanitarias en una escuela secundaria pública de Estados Unidos. Tras la eliminación de pequeños subgrupos de la muestra original, los participantes incluyeron 162 estudiantes Asiático‐Americanos e Isleños del Pacífico. Los análisis de covarianza indicaron que, comparado con el grupo de comparación, el grupo de tratamiento expresó unos niveles significativamente mayores de apoyo social, participación escolar, interés en el aprendizaje, expectativas vocacionales e identidad étnica. Se discuten las implicaciones para la consejería multicultural en escuelas.     

Eating Issues in Schools: Detection,Management, and Consultation With Allied Professionals

School counselors play a crucial role in the prevention, assessment, treatment, and overall management of eating‐related problems among children and adolescents. This article provides a framework for conceptualizing these difficulties on a continuum of severity and includes recommendations at each level for intervention and consultation. Collaboration with other professionals is encouraged when confronted with these multifaceted issues. Efforts by school counselors are vital to prevention and recovery from eating disorders.     

Closing the gap between behavior and models in route choice: The role of spatiotemporal constraints and latent traits in choice set formation

A considerable gap exists between the behavioral paradigm of choice set formation in route choice and its representation in route choice modeling. While travelers form their viable choice set by retaining routes that satisfy spatiotemporal constraints, existing route generation techniques do not account for individual-related spatiotemporal constraints. This paper reduces the gap by proposing a route choice model incorporating spatiotemporal constraints and latent traits. The proposed approach combines stochastic route generation with a latent variable semi-compensatory model representing constraint-based choice set formation followed by compensatory choice. The model is applied to data focusing on habitual commuting route choice behavior in morning peak hours. Results show (i) the possibility of inferring spatiotemporal constraints from considered routes, (ii) the importance of incorporating spatiotemporal constraints and latent traits in route choice models, and (iii) the linkage between spatiotemporal constraints and time saving, spatial and mnemonic abilities.     

Belief in a just world and wellbeing in Indian schools

This study investigates the meaning of belief in just world (BJW) for students' subjective justice experiences with their parents and teachers and for students' subjective well-being. The hypotheses tested were that the more strongly students endorse BJW, the less the distress at school and depressive symptoms they experience. Two dimensions of BJW were assessed: personal BJW, reflecting the belief that events in one's own life are generally just, and general BJW, reflecting the belief that the world is basically a just place. The participants were 278 Indian students attending ten 10th grade classes at two private English-medium schools. The results showed that only the personal BJW, not the general BJW, was important in explaining justice experiences and wellbeing. The more the students endorsed the belief in personal just world, the more they felt treated justly by their teachers and their parents alike, and the less distress at school and depressive symptoms they experienced. In addition, teacher justice, but not parent justice, explained distress at school. Finally, the effect of personal BJW on depressive symptoms was partly mediated by both teacher and parent justice. This pattern of results persisted when class effects were controlled. Overall, this pattern of results emphasizes the importance of the individual and subjective experience of justice of the teacher behavior for adolescent wellbeing. Implications for further studies on BJW and wellbeing at school are discussed.     

Effects of Conflict Resolution Training Integrated Into a High School Social Studies Curriculum

Abstract

The authors examined the effectiveness of conflict resolution and peer mediation training among California high school students. The authors randomly assigned 2 of 4 classes to receive 5 weeks of conflict resolution and peer mediation training integrated into the required social studies curriculum. The remaining 2 classes studied the same social studies curriculum for an identical amount of time (105 min every other day) without conflict resolution and peer mediation training. The authors investigated 2 issues. The 1st was the effectiveness of the conflict resolution and peer mediation training. The trained students, compared with the untrained students, learned the integrative negotiation and peer mediation procedures better, applied the procedures more completely, chose an integrative over a distributive approach to negotiation, and developed more positive attitudes toward conflict. The 2nd issue was the impact of the training program on academic achievement. Integrating conflict resolution and peer mediation training into an academic course promoted higher achievement, greater long-term retention of the academic learning, and greater transfer of academic learning in social studies to language arts.     

Israeli Students' Perspectives Concerning Determinants of Intelligence

Abstract

Students' attitudes toward the nature versus nurture controversy pertaining to a variety of critical phenomena in the intelligence domain were assessed. A student inventory was constructed, pretested, and group administered to 269 students in various academic institutions in northern Israel, and comparisons were made between various sex, social, and ethnic groups. The majority of the students maintained that environment is the main factor influencing both personality and intelligence. Environment and an Environment x Heredity interaction were the most popular categories used to explain various generalizations about differences in ability, particularly among lower-class students. Students of Western origin were more inclined to adopt an environmental perspective on differences in IQ than were their Eastern counterparts. No sex differences were observed.     

Concurrent-chains schedules as a method to study choice between alcohol-associated conditioned reinforcers

An extensive body of research using concurrent-chains schedules of reinforcement has shown that choice for one of two differentially valued food-associated stimuli is dependent upon the overall temporal context in which those stimuli are embedded. The present experiments examined whether the concurrent chains procedure was useful for the study of behavior maintained by alcohol and alcohol-associated stimuli. In Experiment 1, rats responded on concurrent-chains schedules with equal variable-interval (VI) 10-s schedules in the initial links. Across conditions, fixed-interval schedules in the terminal links were varied to yield 1∶1, 9∶1, and 1∶9 ratios of alcohol delivery. Initial-link response rates reflected changes in terminal-link schedules, with greater relative responding in the rich terminal link. In Experiment 2, terminal-link schedules remained constant with a 9∶1 ratio of alcohol delivery rates while the length of two equal duration initial-link schedules was varied. Preference for the rich terminal link was less extreme when initial links were longer (i.e., the initial-link effect), as has been previously reported with food reinforcers. This result suggests that the conditioned reinforcing value of an alcohol-associated stimulus depends on the temporal context in which it is embedded. The concurrent-chains procedure and quantitative models of concurrent chains performance may provide a useful framework within which to study how contextual variables modulate preference for drug-associated conditioned reinforcers.     

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST? A CROSS-SPECIES ANALYSIS OF CHOICES BETWEEN REINFORCER SEQUENCES

Two experiments were conducted to compare choices between sequences of reinforcers in pigeon (Experiment 1) and human (Experiment 2) subjects, using functionally analogous procedures. The subjects made pairwise choices among 3 sequence types, all of which provided the same overall reinforcerment rate, but differed in their temporal patterning. Token reinforcement schedules were used in both experiments and the type of exchange schedule varied across blocks of sessions. Some conditions permitted immediate exchange of tokens for consumable reinforcers (food for pigeons, video access for humans); in other conditions, tokens accumulated and were exchanged for consumable reinforcers only at the end of the sequence. Choice patterns in the immediate-exchange conditions were generally similar across species, with both pigeons and humans preferring sequences with the shortest delay to the initial reinforcer in the series. The results are broadly consistent with models of temporal discounting expanded to include the impact of sequences of delayed reinforcers acting in parallel from the time of the choice. Preferences were less consistent with discounting models in the delayed exchange conditions. Questionnaire data gathered at the end of the experiment were consistent with prior results of questionnaire studies, but showed no straightforward relation to the observed choice patterns, urging caution in the extrapolation of results from one decision-making domain to the other.