Worker training: A review, critique, and extension

Why does employee training in the US lag behind that of our industrial counterparts? We provide an overview of employee training in the US and a review of American employee training literature and concepts. Our criticism of this literature is based on its limited conceptual structure that derives from an over-reliance on the distinction between “general” versus “specific” training. We find this dichotomy to be both empirically and theoretically imprecise. We also provide a brief overview of employee training in other industrialized nations. In combination, the critique of the American literature and the review of the international literature provide a framework for suggesting new approaches to training and its study in the United States. We argue that such a new approach is needed both to understand employee training in the US and to provide an empirical framework for guiding its growth and development.     

Use of generalized estimating equations in a trial in influenza to explore treatment effects over time

For trials with repeated measurements of outcome, analyses often focus on univariate outcomes, such as analysis of summary measures or of the last on‐treatment observation. Methods which model the whole data set provide a rich source of approaches to analysis. For continuous data, mixed‐effect modelling is increasingly used. For binary and categorical data, models based on use of generalized estimating equations account for intra‐subject correlation and allow exploration of the time course of response, as well as providing a useful way to account for missing data, when such data can be maintained as missing in the analysis. The utility of this approach is illustrated by an example from a trial in influenza. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Implicit Family Process Rules in Eating-Disordered and Non-Eating-Disordered Families

Family environment has been shown to be one of the factors related to the presence of eating disorders among young-adult females. Clinical experience and theories about eating disorders postulate that implicit family rules are an intricate part of family process that may have a great effect on the creation and maintenance of such problems. This study compared implicit family process rules (specifically rules pertaining to kindness; expressiveness and connection; constraining thoughts, feelings, and self; inappropriate caretaking; and monitoring) in families with a young-adult female diagnosed with an eating disorder—either anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or eating disorder not otherwise specified—and families with a young-adult female without an eating disorder diagnosis. One hundred two families (51 eating disordered and 51 comparison) participated in the study. Mothers, fathers, young-adult female children, and siblings completed the Family Implicit Rules Profile ( Harper, Stoll, & Larson, 2007 ). Results indicated that eating-disordered families are governed by a greater proportion of constraining family rules than are non-eating-disordered families. Additionally, eating-disordered youth reported a lower proportion of facilitative family rules and a higher proportion of constraining family rules than did parents and siblings. Theoretical, research, and clinical implications are discussed.     

Adolescent Depression and Future Smoking Behavior: A Prospective Study

The aim of the study was to examine the associations between depressive symptoms and smoking, concurrently and prospectively, in adolescents in America, the evaluation of depressive symptoms according to different group’s smoking status, and the assessed associations between concurrent depressive level and success in smoking cessation. The participants were 2,735 boys and 2,890 girls from the Add Health data set. The prospective analysis indicated that participants with higher depressive symptoms in Wave I were more likely to start smoking and become regular smokers in Wave II. Moreover, regression analysis found that depressive symptoms in both Waves I and II predicted current smoking status. Findings are discussed within the context of the empirical and theoretical review and implications for social work practice are considered.     

A Comparison of Textual and Echoic Prompts on the Acquisition of Intraverbal Behavior in a Six-Year-Old Boy with Autism

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - A comparison of textual and echoic prompts was conducted to determine which form of prompts was more effective for teaching intraverbal behavior to a 6-year-old...     

The Effects of Recent Welfare and Immigration Reforms on Immigrants' Access to Health Care1

This study investigates the impact of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, both passed in 1996, on the use of health‐care services in immigrant communities in five Texas counties. The study presents findings of interviews with public agency officials, directors of community‐based organizations, and members of 500 households during two research phases, 1997–1998 and 1998–1999. In the household sample, 20 percent of U.S. citizens and 30 percent of legal permanent residents who reported having received Medicaid during the five years before they were interviewed also reported losing the coverage during the past year. Some lost coverage because of welfare reform restrictions on noncitizen eligibility or because of changes in income or household size, but many eligible immigrants also withdrew from Medicaid “voluntarily.”     

Patterns and characteristics of adolescent gambling

Minnesota youth (15 to 18-years of age) were surveyed regarding their gambling experiences and psychosocial risk status. Gambling was reported by most of the subjects, with 8.7% classified as problem gamblers. Correlates of problem gambling included school difficulties, regular drug use, delinquency, parental gambling, and being male. Adolescent gambling is conceptualized as a normal experience of youth, yet those in the problem gambling group may be particularly vulnerable to future gambling problems.The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Minnesota Department of Human Services for their funding support of the study and to several colleagues, particularly Linda Harris, J. Clark Laundergan and Durand Jacobs, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

WORKING IN “HIGH-TECH”: RESEARCH ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE INDUSTRIAL SOCIOLOGIST*

This article outlines some issues concerning the organization of work in the new “high technology” industries. High technology industries are defined as industries involved in the manufacture of electronic information processing machinery and related products. Two central tensions are key to understanding work in the new high technology industries. First, a limited reduction in the prevalance of repetitive tasks is counterbalanced by increasing isolation of workers due to semi-automated production processes. This tension may be mediated by intentional efforts on the part of unions and/or management to recreate meaningful work environments. Second, potential empowerment arising from the creation of new job related skills is frequently offset by continuing high unemployment in the broader labor market that is to some extent a result of the very success of high technology production tcchniques. Difficulties in realizing potential aspects of empowerment may be further amplified by large-scale utilization of female and minority labor in high technology industries in the West and Southwest. Research techniques of addressing these issues are also surveyed and evaluated.     

A note on optimal and robust spacing selection

The problem of quantile selection for the asymptotically best linear unbiased estimators of location and scale parameters is considered. The asymptotic properties of several quantile selection methods for simultaneous parameter estimation are derived and simple approximate solutions are provided. A robust scheme for quantile selection is also developed.