Mismatch of school desks and chairs by ethnicity and grade level in middle school

The purpose of this article is to introduce the cross-disciplinary competency standards for work-related assessments, why they are needed and how they have been developed in New South Wales (NSW). Cross-disciplinary competency standards communicate the benchmarks for effective performance of work-related assessments. They outline what is expected of rehabilitation professionals, including the ability to apply and transfer competence across different conditions and workplace contexts. Outcomes in occupational rehabilitation are affected by the efficacy of the work-related assessments performed, which is dependent upon competent, clinical decision-making by rehabilitation professionals. However, in Australia, work-related assessment practice is not governed by universally accepted competency standards or by any competency-based training/education and assessment system. To enhance professional practice, WorkCover NSW has developed cross-disciplinary competency standards for work-related a ssessments. The competencies provide (i) quality standards for professional workplace training and development, (ii) benchmarks for assessing the competence of rehabilitation professionals, (iii) a framework for evidence-based practice, (iv) benchmarks for measuring service quality and (v) "real world" learning outcomes and assessment criteria for professional education programs.     

Pretest-posttest designs and measurement of change

The article examines issues involved in comparing groups and measuring change with pretest and posttest data. Different pretest-posttest designs are presented in a manner that can help rehabilitation professionals to better understand and determine effects resulting from selected interventions. The reliability of gain scores in pretest-posttest measurement is also discussed in the context of rehabilitation research and practice.     

Confirming and Expanding the Usefulness of the Extended Satisfaction With Life Scale (ESWLS)

The role of stress, particularly economic hindrance,in the prediction of global life-satisfaction wascontrasted between typically younger (n = 109)and more mature (n = 66) undergraduate students. Participants completed a Personal Projects AnalysisAppraisal Matrix including six stress dimensions, aswell as a single-item measure of globallife-satisfaction. Discriminant function analysesconducted on the students' Personal Project appraisalsrevealed that project challenge and economic hindranceaccounted for 25% of the variability inlife-satisfaction for the mature students, but none ofthe stress dimensions predicted life satisfaction forthe younger students. These results indicate that therole of stress in the prediction of life-satisfactionvaries as a function of age, with project challengeand economic hindrance playing a significant role inolder students' lives. The results are discussed inrelation to the developmental context of personalprojects as life tasks and the varying contexts foracademic pursuit between mature and typically youngerundergraduate students.     

College and University Health Care Professionals: An Expanding Team

Abstract

Factors contributing to students' compliance with mass vaccination programs during meningococcal outbreaks have not been well described. A 1997 mass vaccination campaign at Michigan State University provided an opportunity to study such factors. Of 34 024 students in the target population, 17 538 (51.5%) were vaccinated in 5 days. Vaccination rates were higher for women (47.9%) than for men (43.1 %) and higher for on-campus residents (65.3%) than for off-campus residents (35.6%). For each year of students' age beyond 19, the adjusted odds of vaccination were reduced by 0.82. Adjusted odds ratios for vaccination, with White students as the reference group at 1.0, were 1.33 for Asian American students, 0.97 (not significant) for Hispanic students, 0.82 for African American students, and 0.80 for Native American students. Students from the Colleges of Business, Engineering, Communication, and Natural Science had the highest vaccination rates; those from the College of Arts and Letters had the lowest rates.     

The North American Career Development Partnership: Experiment in International Collaboration

This article describes how career development programs became the focus of an international partnership between the United States and Canada. Beginning in 1976 in the United States, the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC) and its State Occupational Information Coordinating Committees (SOICCs) developed training and materials that promote the use of occupational and labor market information. Similarly, in the early 1970s, Canada began to explore the feasibility of creating a computer‐based career information delivery system. What follows is the story of an unusual and significant international collaboration. It concludes with identification of lessons learned.     

Model-based measurement of latent risk in time series with applications

Summary.  Risk is at the centre of many policy decisions in companies, governments and other institutions. The risk of road fatalities concerns local governments in planning countermeasures, the risk and severity of counterparty default concerns bank risk managers daily and the risk of infection has actuarial and epidemiological consequences. However, risk cannot be observed directly and it usually varies over time. We introduce a general multivariate time series model for the analysis of risk based on latent processes for the exposure to an event, the risk of that event occurring and the severity of the event. Linear state space methods can be used for the statistical treatment of the model. The new framework is illustrated for time series of insurance claims, credit card purchases and road safety. It is shown that the general methodology can be effectively used in the assessment of risk.     

Mediation and Minority Members of Academe

Focus groups are used to gather information from minorities in a university setting. Minority members of three campus groups (students, staff, and faculty) identified issues that could lead to relational conflicts. Alternative methods of dispute resolution are discussed in terms of their suitability and viability for use by minorities in academe. Mediation is presented as the preferred process for conflict resolution on an increasing number of college and university campuses. Mediation as a form of sociological practice in academia is a wide-open field of opportunity.     

Crisis in rural life and crisis in thinking: directions for critical research*

La crise contemporaine de la vie rurale et agricole c'est produite simultanément avec une crise de la pensée et de la recherche critique: une analyse basée sur l'engagement à créer une société plus rationelle, démocratique et égalitaire. L'économie politique, le paradigme prédominant, a contribuée de façon importante à l'identification et à l'analyse des méchanismes économiques sur lesquels se développent la crise sociale. Mais celui-ci n'a tenu aucun compte d'enquêter sur la façon dont une crise est vécue par ceux qui en sont le plus touchés, et sur les perspectives de changement queue crise du genre peut offrir. Ceci est due d'un côtéà la nature des hypothèses théoriques de l'économie politique, ainsi que sur la façon dont les économistes politiques utilisent les méthodes des sondages dans leurs travaux empiriques. En utilisant les ressources offertes par la theorie sociale et les résultats de recherche primaire et empirique, cet article suggère de nouvelles directions pour la recherche critique de la vie rurale. Nous expliquons que ce genre de recherche devrait devenir plus hermaneutique et phénoménologique dans le but de concentrer sur les perceptions, l'analyse personnelle et les activités de ceux qui vivent dans les milieux ruraux, surtout lorsque ceux-ci essaient de préserver leurs communautés contre l'influence de l'extérieur. II n'est plus nécessaire, de présumer que les chercheur(e)s et leur sujets doivent demeurer détachés si la recherche est sérieusement scientifique et érudite. Cet article considère certaines implications théoriques, empiriques et historiques qu'apporte cet argument. The contemporary crisis in agriculture and rural life has been paralleled by a crisis in critical thinking and research: analysis informed by the commitment to a more rational, democratic and egalitarian society. Political economy, the currently dominant critical paradigm, has made important contributions to the identification and analysis of the economic mechanisms through which social crisis develops. But it has by and large failed to probe both the ways in which crisis is actually experienced by people enduring it and the real possibilities for change that a crisis situation might offer. This failure stems both from the nature of the theoretical assumptions which inform political economy and the manner in which political economists deploy methods of survey research in their empirical work. Using both the resources of social theory and the results of empirical, primary research, this paper attempts to suggest new directions for critical research into rural life. J t argues that this research should adopt a more explicitly hermeneutical and phenomenological focus which should put the perceptions, self-understandings and activities of rural people themselves, particularly as they strive to preserve their communities against outside forces, more fully at the centre of analysis. No longer should it be assumed that researchers and those studied must remain separate if research is to be truly scholarly and scientific. The paper addresses some possible theoretical, empirical and historical     

Sexual Behaviors,Sexual Health Practices,and Community Engagement Among Gay and Bisexually Identified Men Living in Rural Areas of the United States

Limited research has focused on the sexual behaviors of men who have sex with men (MSM) from rural communities. We examined the sexual and health-related behaviors of MSM living in rural areas of the United States in order to understand the sexual health repertoire of this population. A total of 5,357 participants living in rural settings were recruited online and completed an anonymous Internet-based survey that assessed sexual behaviors, condom use, and men’s engagement with various community activities and events. These data provide a greater understanding of sexual health profiles that exist among rural MSM and will help inform the design of effective programs for men in these often underserved communities.