Social Work Students and Faculty: Testing the Convergence of Perspectives on Student Writing Abilities

Students (n = 244, 76% MSSW) and faculty members (n = 40, 36% tenure or tenure track) at a social work program at a large public southern U.S. university were surveyed to assess within- and between-group differences in perspectives on student writing. Faculty members expressed significantly greater concern with student writing than students. Latina/o, African American, female, and undergraduate students all reported more writing challenges compared to their peers. Likewise, full-time faculty members who teach mainly online or had less training in writing instruction reported more challenges than their colleagues. Overall, our findings support the need for writing interventions that acculturate students to the discipline through a more inclusive, culturally competent discourse as well as increased faculty preparation for teaching writing.     

Effects of Duration on Perceptions of Teacher Sexual Misconduct

This study explored how respondent gender, gender dyad (male teacher–female student versus female teacher–male student) and duration/frequency (weekly sexual contact over 4 months versus a single incident) affected perceptions of teacher–adolescent student sexual involvement. Respondents were 224 undergraduates (104 men, 120 women) recruited from a psychology research pool. Most (87%) were 18–21 years old, and 59% were Caucasian. Each respondent read one of four scenarios (varied by gender dyad and duration/frequency) depicting a teacher–adolescent student sexual interaction and then completed a series of questions about his or her perceptions. Results indicated that men perceived these experiences less negatively than did women, and the female teacher–male student dyad was viewed less negatively than the male teacher–female student dyad. Relatively few significant interactions emerged, and the only main effect for duration/frequency was for commitment. Results are discussed in terms of the need for more research and education.     

Hitting the jackpot: the influence of monetary payout on gambling behaviour

Restrictions on monetary payout may promote player engagement in gambling as a form of entertainment rather than as a source of income. Our objective was to evaluate the effects of monetary prize magnitude upon gambling behaviour in a community sample, and the degree to which this association is moderated by gambling risk factors. One hundred and eighty-seven adults completed an online survey assessing motivation, impulsivity and affect. Participants were given a series of vignettes and asked to estimate how much they would gamble to win monetary prizes of increasing amounts with and without accrued gambling debt. Participants reported increased gambling in response to increased monetary payout. Debt moderated these outcomes, such that electronic gaming machine (EGM) and lottery expenditures and number of lottery games played decreased with increased debt; this effect was most pronounced at elevated monetary prizes. The association between duration of EGM play and monetary payout was moderated by gender only. Results suggest that self-reported gambling behaviours increased with monetary payout even across qualitatively different gambling products, and across gamblers with different motivations for gambling, levels of impulsivity, and negative affect. The restriction of monetary payouts warrants further research attention as a form of problem gambling prevention.     

Prize Level and Debt Size: Impact on Gambling Behaviour

No studies to date have specifically determined the relationship between prize levels, debt size, and impulsivity on reported gambling behaviour on Electronic Gaming Machines (EGM). The present study reports the findings of a pilot study designed to investigate whether or not the likelihood of increasing the size of a bet was related to the level of prize offered and personal debt. The sample consisted of 171 first year psychology students (61 males and 120 females). Participants completed a series of gambling vignettes designed to elicit data on reported bet size according to different prize levels and debt sizes; the Eysenck Impulsivity Scale (Eysenck and Eysenck 1977); the Canadian Problem Gambling Index; and an author-constructed questionnaire eliciting data on demographic and gambling behaviours. Results indicated that as prize levels increase the odds (relative risk) of an individual placing a bet on an EGM and the amount of money reportedly bet tends to increase. A negative relationship between debt size and reported gambling behaviour moderated by prize level was found. No differences were found in the odds of placing a bet according to impulsivity. It was concluded that prize and debt sizes do influence propensities to gamble and level of bets. The findings have implications for restricting jackpot and general prize levels as a responsible gambling strategy designed to reduce motivations to gamble.     

CONTINUITY IN MIS/DSS LABORATORY RESEARCH: THE CASE FOR A COMMON GAMING SIMULATOR*

To date, case analyses and field studies have predominated in MIS/DSS research. Laboratory studies seem not to have been given the attention they deserve. This trend is partially due to: (1) the high costs associated with developing decision simulators and related software to support laboratory research and (2) difficult problems with external validity because of unrealistically simple simulated decision environments and DSS software. Since MIS/DSS laboratory research has been most successful when studies have occurred in an interrelated stream, the development of common, portable, and flexible simulators seems desirable. Common simulators would reduce the time and cost of developing experiments, provide for research continuity, comparability, and replication, and facilitate researcher-to-researcher communication. Sufficiently complex simulators and DSS software would reduce problems with external validity by providing more realistic laboratory models. This paper presents a software package that offers considerable potential as a common tool for DSS research.     

The Effects of an Interactive Graphics-Based DSS to Support Problem Structuring

Graphical, interactive, problem-structuring tools were devised and incorporated into a DSS. These tools were based on concepts of structural modeling and motivated by propositions and findings in memory theory and imagery theory. A laboratory study was then conducted to investigate the relationship between decision-maker characteristics and use of the problem-structuring aid. The experiment was designed to determine whether use of the tool to assist in problem formulation led to a better understanding of problem structure. A moderately complex management simulation and its companion DSS were used in the experiment. Eighty-four subjects were divided into two groups: a control group that did not use the Graphical Interactive Structural Modeling Option (GISMO), and an experimental group that did. The results showed a statistically significant effect between cognitive ability and use of GISMO. Field independents (i.e., high cognitive ability) effectively combined GISMO use with image processing skills to understand the structure of the problem domain, but field dependents (i.e., low cognitive ability) were ineffective. There was very little difference in problem understanding in field dependents who used the tool and those who did not.     

Teaching Note—Preparing Doctoral Students to Confront the Grand Challenges: Strengthening Baseline Statistical Skills

We describe a statistical seminar designed to provide a common foundation in core statistical concepts among all students as they enter a social work PhD program. Student feedback surveys assessed students’ statistics preparation prior to entering the program, and pre- and posttests were compared for increases in statistical knowledge. Nearly half (42.1%) reported no prior statistics training, and exposure to IBM SPSS Statistics software was low (M=1.54 out of 5, SD=1.38). Students showed significant gains in posttest knowledge. Findings suggest substantial variability in students’ statistical preparedness, and for many, knowledge of basic concepts is rudimentary. Such a seminar may allow programs to begin with more advanced quantitative course work and move to increasingly more complex topics over time (e.g., multilevel modeling).     

The Information Problems in Organizations: A Research Model for the Value of Information and Information Systems*

Growing recognition of the need for better management information system (MIS) theory and practice centers around problems with identifying the value of information and information systems in organizations. This paper addresses this issue by showing that existing theory in organizational economics and industrial organization directly relates to information problems in organizations (their nature, and their effects in terms of organization structure and performance). The paper categorizes these problems and associated theories into four distinct classes and shows that MIS research and practice can be mapped to information problems of each type. Because the economic theory pertinent to specific information problems includes the nature of the organizational response to information constraints, it also provides insight into the nature of the improvement to be realized if information constraints can be overcome. These improvements can then be interpreted as the value of the associated information systems which suggests using the resultant classification scheme to map between information problems and system value. The paper shows that this methodology provides a more appropriate level of focus than either traditional normative or business value methods, especially because many improvements have structural as well as performance consequences.     

Automated Discovery in Managerial Problem Formulation: Formation of Causal Hypotheses for Cognitive Mapping

Development of knowledge acquisition techniques known as automated discovery systems has occurred in deep and narrow domains of knowledge. Automated discovery is the generation of new knowledge by a computer system on its own, without the help of another knowledge source. This paper describes research and validation of an automated discovery system for a wide and shallow domain—business management. The system continues recent advances in expert systems research which have enhanced cognitive mapping, a problem formulation tool. The system perceives the behavior of distal variables in the environment through probabilistic cues-to-causality, and generates previously unknown hypotheses by aggregating the probabilities into a single criterion of causal relatedness. The system is validated against the source code of a simulated managerial environment, and causal relationships posited by decision makers experienced in the play of the gaming simulator.