Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

Gedanken zur Gestaltung einer professionellen Beratungsausbildung

Considerations on the design of a professional education of counselorsSome of the recently published articles about supervision-professionalizing are reflecting only sociological or psychological conceptions in order to describe and analyze professionality. In this article the authors discuss some of the mostly neglected points of view out of pedagogic and microsociologic professionalization-research (professional self, researching attitude). The existing requests of competence for supervisors are examined in order to test their teaching ability. Furthermore the content designs and didactic strategies for future counselor’s education are considered.     

Investigating the impact of violations of the “left and top means first” heuristic on response behavior and data quality

ABSTRACT

Web surveys are an established data collection mode that use written language to provide information. The written language is accompanied by visual elements, such as presentation formats and shapes. However, research has shown that visual elements influence response behavior because respondents sometimes use interpretive heuristics to make sense of the visual elements. One such heuristic is the ‘left and top means first’ (LTMF) heuristic, which suggests that respondents tend to believe that a response scale consistently runs from left to right or from top to bottom. We conducted a web survey experiment to investigate how violations of the LTMF heuristic affect response behavior and data quality. For this purpose, a random half of respondents received response options that followed a consistent order and the other half received response options that followed an inconsistent order. The results reveal significantly different response distributions between the two groups. We also found that inconsistently ordered response options significantly increase response times and decrease data quality in terms of criterion validity. We, therefore, recommend using options that follow the design strategies of the LTMF heuristic.     

Relatives in Residence: Relatedness of Household Members Drives Schooling Differentials in Mozambique

Children typically receive investments from their fathers, but absent fathers often invest at low levels. In a father's absence, what types of nonfathers invest heavily in children? This article investigates educational participation as a reflection of childhood investments on Ibo Island, Mozambique, where only one third of school‐aged children live with their biological fathers. Father‐present children generally attended school at the highest rates. Stepchildren and father‐absent relatives (e.g., grandchildren, nieces) attended school at comparably high rates if any coresiding children were father‐present. This may signal high altruism among present fathers toward some nonoffspring. Consistent with this result, a fixed effects model indicates that, within the same household, adult males invested equally in their own children, relatives, and stepchildren. Prejudicially lower investments were made in children who were unrelated to the household's adult males, however; this result has strong negative implications for the well‐being of African children fostered by nonrelatives.     

Nutrient intake in day workers and shift workers

Abstract

The 24-h dietary intake, nutritional status parameters and psychosomatic factors of two-shift, three-shift and day workers were compared. Estimations of the dietary intake (across a work cycle) were made by use of a nutrient database. No significant differences were found between the groups for a large number of nutritional variables: intake of energy; intake and percentage of energy from protein, fat, total carbohydrates and sucrose; intake of coffee; and intake and density of vitamins and minerals. Only minor differences were found between the groups with regard to the quantitative intake of alcohol and calcium, and with regard to the quality of the diet (percentage of energy from alcohol, density of calcium). The groups differed significantly with respect to attitude towards work hours (three-shift workers being most negative in their attitude) and sleep disturbances (shift workers being most negative). The three-shift workers were more evening-oriented and they had higher concentrations of glucose in their blood. It was concluded that work hours not related to nutritional intake—at least not when total amounts across time are considered. It was also concluded that work hours were not related to Body Mass Index or blood lipids: triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol and HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol.     

Changes in the structure of health complaints as related to shiftwork exposure

Abstract

Factor analyses of health complaints in groups with different length of shiftwork exposure show that the structure of these complaints changes with increasing shift experience, indicating the emergence of a shift-specific pattern of health complaints. After about 15 years of shiftwork, complaints related to disturbances of circadian-controlled functions can be found in the first factor whereas other complaints have their dominant loadings on a separate factor, representing general, non-shift-specific impairments. The results indicate that in this way shift-specific components of health impairment can be separated from other non-shift related components.     

Applying stage-gate processes to technology development—Experience from six hardware-oriented companies

The stage gate model has been proposed for application to uncertain technology development. Reports on industrial experience from such implementations are quite limited, however. This led us to explore in six companies what adaptations have been made to facilitate the model's usefulness for technology development and the companies’ experiences from their practical application of the model. Our results indicate that aspects proven important for the operational success, or failure, of the model include the level of adaptation to the characteristics of technology development and a more flexible use than that normally found in product development.