The Impact of Assessment Procedures on the Relationship between Paper and Pencil and Behavioral Indicators of Social Skill

This study investigated the relationship between paper and pencil measures and molecular behavioral indicators of social skills in three widely used assessment options. A total of 221 students engaged in either a get acquainted or role play interaction, in which they were given instructions and knew they were being observed. A third group engaged in a waiting period interaction, in which they were given no instructions to interact and had no knowledge of being observed. Results showed that subjects in the get acquainted and role play situations scored higher on several measures of social skills than those in the waiting period situation. In addition, there was most variability in the measures of social skills in the waiting period situation. In general, trait measures exhibited poor correspondence with behavioral measures of social skills in all situations. However, state paper and pencil measures of social skills exhibited strong correspondence with behaviors in the waiting period, but not in the get acquainted or role play situations. Implications for the assessment of social communication skills through commonly used assessment procedures are discussed.     

Worth a Third Read: Six ANZJFT Readers Remember

If we do not sometimes look back over our shoulders to remind ourselves of the ANZJFT's past achievements, we may forget, and newcomers may never be stimulated to explore earlier contributions for themselves. For this reason, six subscribers were asked to write five hundred words in answer to the question ‘Over the time you have been reading the Journal, what article sticks in your memory the most?’ The one restriction that was placed upon their choice was that if they found themselves unable to choose between two articles, they were to discuss the older of the two, to help assure a wider spread.     

Interactions of land-use history and current ecology in a recovering “urban wildland”

Despite the highly disrupted nature of abandoned industrial sites, they have significant human and ecological value. Ecological recovery at such sites is determined by complex interactions between natural factors and anthropogenic influences. Here we describe the land-use history and ecology of a former industrial wasteland. The spatial and temporal distribution of human disturbance at the study site included early farming, clay mining, brick making and landfilling, activities which have had profound and lasting ecological impacts resulting in a diverse but highly disrupted successional mosaic. Understanding the postdisturbance ecological recovery at this site has required a knowledge of natural factors such as slope, soil types and bedrock geology and hydrology, coupled with a detailed knowledge of the land-use history. Compared to recovery trajectories from many types of natural disturbance, ecological change at this site has been slower and more variable. Understanding ecological history has been crucial in projecting future changes as well as in making wise decisions about use and management practices for the site.     

Patterns of Strategic Change in the Development of Human Resource Management

In addition to being characterized by the consistency of employment decisions one with another and their alignment with business strategy, human resource management (HRM) has also been deeply involved in the reshaping of organization structures in the 1980s, under conditions of increased external and internal complexity, and in managing other aspects of strategic change. These have contributed to the distinctive character of HRM and the shift away from a style of personnel management focused on administration and industrial relations. This evolution is explored through the concept of life-cycle change in a sample of ten firms that underwent major transformation during the 1980s.     

Gendered Futures? Women,the ICT Workplace and Stories of the Future

This article investigates stories of the future in relation to women in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector through the development of a theoretical and methodological stance towards the future. Given concerns about the future of the ICT sector in terms of skills shortages and gender imbalances, an understanding of how female ICT professionals view this future is vital. Using data gathered from female ICT professionals in the UK, we look specifically at gendered stories about the future in relation to hybrid/bridger ICT workers, the practices of offshoring/global locating ICT work and the under‐representation of women in ICT. Such stories of the future are part of wider discourses on gender relations in late modern society, and so their examination becomes a conduit for problematizing contemporary discourse about gender, work, time and technology.     

Optimal sample coordination using controlled selection

Sample coordination maximizes or minimizes the overlap of two or more samples selected from overlapping populations. It can be applied to designs with simultaneous or sequential selection of samples. We propose a method for sample coordination in the former case. We consider the case where units are to be selected with maximum overlap using two designs with given unit inclusion probabilities. The degree of coordination is measured by the expected sample overlap, which is bounded above by a theoretical bound, called the absolute upper bound, and which depends on the unit inclusion probabilities. If the expected overlap equals the absolute upper bound, the sample coordination is maximal. Most of the methods given in the literature consider fixed marginal sampling designs, but in many cases, the absolute upper bound is not achieved. We propose to construct optimal sampling designs for given unit inclusion probabilities in order to realize maximal coordination. Our method is based on some theoretical conditions on joint selection probability of two samples and on the controlled selection method with linear programming implementation. The method can also be applied to minimize the sample overlap.     

Friendship and Delinquency: Selection and Influence Processes in Early Adolescence

Positive association of relevant characteristics is a widespread pattern among adolescent friends. A positive association may be caused by the selection of similar others as friends and by the deselection of dissimilar ones, but also by influence processes where friends adjust their behavior to each other. Social control theory argues that adolescents select each other as friends based on delinquency. Differential association theory, on the other hand, argues that adolescent friends influence each other's delinquency levels. We employ new statistical methods for assessing the empirical evidence for either process while controlling for the other process. These methods are based on ‘actor‐oriented’ stochastic simulation models. We analyze longitudinal data on friendship networks and delinquent behavior collected in four waves of 544 students in 21 first‐grade classrooms of Dutch secondary schools. Results indicate that adolescents select others as friends who have a similar level of delinquency compared with their own level. Estimates of the social influence parameters are not significant. The results are consistent with social control theory but provide no support for differential association theory.     

The Multidimensionality of Presbycusis: Hearing Losses on the Content and Relational Dimensions of Speech

Presbycusis, the age associated decline in hearing and listening, has been traditionally conceptualized as the progressive inability to distinguish phonemes and hence to apprehend the content of spoken communication. Based on the distinction between the content and relational dimensions of communication, this study posed the possibility that presbycusis also involves a loss of listening ability along the relational dimension of communication. Using five measures of speech discrimination and listening, the study confirmed that aging is significantly associated with losses on the content and relational dimensions of listening. Furthermore, there are different rates of aging for these two dimensions. Whereas the loss on the content dimension is linearly related to age, the loss on the relational dimension is curvilinearly related to age with little decline in ability until a relatively drastic loss occurs in the early to mid-70s. These results indicate that the communicative impact of presbycusis is considerably greater for the old elderly than for the young elderly. Thus, this study constitutes initial evidence for a multidimensional conception of presbycusis.     

The new ‘hidden abode’: reflections on value and labour in the new economy

In a pivotal section of Capital, volume 1, Marx (1976 : 279) notes that, in order to understand the capitalist production of value, we must descend into the ‘hidden abode of production’: the site of the labour process conducted within an employment relationship. In this paper we argue that by remaining wedded to an analysis of labour that is confined to the employment relationship, Labour Process Theory (LPT) has missed a fundamental shift in the location of value production in contemporary capitalism. We examine this shift through the work of Autonomist Marxists like Hardt and Negri, Lazaratto and Arvidsson, who offer theoretical leverage to prize open a new ‘hidden abode’ outside employment, for example in the ‘production of organization’ and in consumption. Although they can open up this new ‘hidden abode’, without LPT's fine‐grained analysis of control/resistance, indeterminacy and structured antagonism, these theorists risk succumbing to empirically naive claims about the ‘new economy’. Through developing an expanded conception of a ‘new hidden abode’ of production, the paper demarcates an analytical space in which both LPT and Autonomist Marxism can expand and develop their understanding of labour and value production in today's economy.