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The purpose of this study was to investigate compressed digital video as an instructional delivery system for distance learning. The independent variable was delivery mode. Two levels of this variable were considered. Level 1 was one-way video/two-way audio. Level 2 was two-way video/two-way audio. Student achievement, student attitude, and instructor attitude were measured as dependent variables. A quasi-experimental study comparing the two delivery modes was conducted. Two treatment groups were established. Both groups received instruction simultaneously from the same instructors. Instructors used both treatment modes (delivery systems) during instruction. Instructor and student subjects were naval, civilian and military personnel involved in the Communications Security Material System (CMS) compressed digital video teletraining course presented by Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic (FCTCLANT), Dam Neck Naval Station, Virginia. Student achievement and student attitude data were collected for each treatment group. Instructor attitude data were collected for each instructor after experience with both treatment modes. Pre/posttests and CMS course final examination were used to measure student achievement. Student attitude was measured using a student attitude survey. Instructor attitude was measured through individual instructor interviews. Findings revealed that compressed digital video was a highly effective instructional delivery mode based on pre/posttest comparison and final examination scores of both treatment groups. Instructors preferred two-way video/two-way audio significantly more than one-way video/two-way audio. No significant difference was revealed in student attitude between treatment groups. After experiencing compressed digital video instructional delivery, both groups rated course instruction, course content, and course delivery medium highly. Additionally, both groups rated time and distance as important factors in choosing to attend future courses via instructional television. Findings suggest compressed digital video can be considered an effective distance learning delivery mode. Further investigation of compressed digital video technology in the instructional domain should be undertaken in the K-12 and higher education environments. Additionally, as compressed digital video technology continues to improve, investigative emphasis should focus on identifying instructional strategies and delivery systems that best support student success.

Persons studying social work at the graduate level manifest temporary self-preoccupation due to situational stress and continuing self-preoccupation because of personality traits. Study of such narcissism offers the possibility of predicting the likelihood of success as a student.

Social work graduate students doing short-term family therapy had most success in alleviating the problems of the identified patient and preventing a new patient's being singled out; had slightly less success in helping to improve the marital dyad; and tended to be more effective with certain types of families.

This study examined the relationship between the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB)and class performance of eleventh‐ and twelfth‐grade high school students enrolled in the Current River Area Vocational School, Doniphan, Missouri. Teachers' grades were used as the dependent variable, and the nine independent variables were scores taken from the aptitude factors of the GATB. The stepwise multiple regression technique was used to determine the optimal set of predictors to be used in establishing a regression equation. The results of the project should help in counseling prospective trainees toward trade or shop areas and tentative vocational planning. If not used out of perspective, the G variable in the GATB was the best single predictor of success; the best combination of variables was the G, N, P, F, and M aptitude factors.

Given recent shifts toward increasing amounts of community-based and family-provided health care, nurses working in all aspects of health care delivery arefaced with helpingfamilies cope effectively with complex caregiving experiences. To do this, nurses need an understanding and appreciation of the interactive complexity offamily life, and they need to know how to "thinkfamily. " This article presents learning experiences in an upper level family nursing course at the University of British Columbia that foster thinkingfamily. Specific attention is given to the usefulness of questions in promoting systems thinking and to the students' struggles and successes as they transform their ways of thinking about family functioning, family illness experiences, andfamily nursing care.

Verlagsinfo: Throughout the 1980s the British Civil Service devoted much time and energy developing indicators to measure the performance of government. Never before had so much stress been placed on accountability and performance; a trend which will be reinforced as government continues to devolve activities to agencies and looks for methods to assess their performance. "How Organisations Measure Success" analyses existing methods from their origins in the 1960s to their revival in the 1980s as part of the Financial Management Initiative and its apotheosis in the 1990s Next Steps Initiative. "How Organisations Measure Success" reports on two years of field research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and will be of great interest to students of social policy and public administration as well as professionals working in government and public sector management.

This experiment concerned the generality of the discussion-induced shift toward pessimism found in some previous studies but not found in others. Male university students (N = 95) were presented with one of two fictitious situations in which a protagonist wanted to gain compliance from another person (an employee wants a promotion; a parent wants his child to study more). For each of 16 compliance-gaining behaviors (e.g., promise, warning, invocation of need) the subjects had to indicate, on a 7-point scale, the likelihood that the protagonist would be successful ("objective response mode') or they had to indicate how well they personally could perform the respective influencing behavior ("subjective response mode'). All subjects first made a success-expectancy estimate. In the group condition (24 triads) participants discussed the judgmental issue and then again made a private estimate on each of the 16 items in turn. For the subjects in the control condition (N = 23) group discussion was replaced by further individual thought and note-taking. Discussion-induced shifts toward pessimism were found in the group conditions (p<.01 and .10 in the subjective and objective conditions). Since there was a (modest) overall initial tendency toward the pessimistic pole, this shift can in part be considered as group polarization, thus attesting to the generality of the group polarization phenomenon. (Secondary analyses bearing on the explanation of this polarization are presented.) In addition, secondary analyses show that pessimistic shift also occurred in those discussion cases where there was no initial leaning toward pessimism. The theoretical explanation of these shifts is discussed.

Selection of students for university places has become an important public issue. Generally, issues of access and equity in admission to higher education have been high on the agenda of the federal government in the 1980s, and continue to be so. They have been the subject of numerous reports. Most of the attention has been focused upon finding alternatives to traditional routes to matriculation, as well as raising awareness among high school students of the possibilities of tertiary education. Schemes have been developed to allow applicants without traditional HSC or equivalent qualifications to gain admission to university. Thus programmes have been developed for mature-age students, aboriginals and others without traditional qualifications to take bridging courses to enable them to cope with tertiary study more successfully. Programmes have been developed to allow secondary schools to develop less academically rigorous courses than the HSC to enable students to study practical subjects while keeping open the possibility of tertiary study. Universities have accepted these qualifications where appropriate as a basis for matriculation but not as equivalent to the HSC for admission to high demand faculties. Important as this work is, it addresses a different issue to that faced by high-demand faculties such as Law. The problem is not so much how to develop alternative minimum standards for matriculation and to encourage wider consideration of tertiary education in the community. The problem which we face is how to select from among the large number of suitably qualified candidates those who should be offered admission to Law. This issue has been addressed much less by the literature in recent years. In a higher demand faculty such as Law, a key issue which has to be addressed is whether the criteria which are adopted for admission are the fairest means of achieving the goals for which they are designed. Those goals should not be taken for granted. At present, in Australian law schools, the main criterion for selection is academic merit according to the results achieved either in the HSC or its equivalent, or tertiary performance. It is not obvious that this should be the basis for selection. Given that the majority of applicants to law schools could, if suitably motivated, succeed in passing a Law course, and that academic ability at Law is only one aspect of what makes a good professional lawyer, selection might be based on other criteria, such as aptitude and motivation for legal practice, or even by ballot from among a qualified group of applicants. Law schools could also consciously endeavour to address social, economic and racial inequalities through selection procedures. It is important however to distinguish between the mainstream methods of entry and alternative methods which might apply to disadvantaged groups or for other reasons. The choice of academic merit as the criterion for mainstream admissions does not preclude having other criteria for entry, or supplementing it by interviews or other aptitude tests. On the other hand, there are important limitations on the capacity of law schools in devising admissions policy. The University of Sydney, for example, attracts a very large number of applications. Taking only first preferences into account, 1900 applications were made for Combined Law or Graduate Law in 1991. With this volume of applications, the Faculty must have objective and easily applicable criteria which at least reduce significantly the potential pool for selection. While random ballots or queues would be objective means of selection which are not labour intensive, it seems to be fundamental to the work of a university that academic ability should be a basis for selection, even if it is only used to reduce the pool from which the candidates are ultimately selected. It is also a basis for selection which is widely accepted in the community. In general, the debate on admissions policy has not been on whether academic criteria should be used, but whether the scores which are used validly and fairly reflect academic merit. In this context, there is considerable debate about the HSC. One possible alternative is post-first year entry to law.

Affective reactions to academic performance appear to be influenced by performance outcome, self-esteem, and causal attributions. We investigated whether expectancies for success and the confirmation or disconfirmation of epectancies also influenced students' affective reactions
and causal attributions in achievement settings. Subjects were 132 university students. Causal attributions and affective reactions to an achievement-related situation were assessed and related to students' self-esteem, expectancies for success, and confirmation or disconfirmation of
expectancies. Results indicated that causal attributions were related to confirmation or disconfirmation of expectancies for success and to self-esteem. Affective reactions were related to the interaction of self-esteem, expectancies for success, and confirmation or disconfirmation of expectancies.
Further analysis suggested that students' affective reactions to performance may serve to maintain existing levels of self-esteem. The role of self-referent and other-referent emotions in self-esteem maintenance was also discussed.

Different methodological approaches sometimes lead to different substantive conclusions. Nowhere is this more evident than in studies relating assessments of presidential skill to legislative success. Scholars of the historical, traditionalist school of presidency research argue that presidents who are perceived to be adept at getting what they want are more likely to achieve their legislative goals than are those perceived as less adept. Neustadt identifies perceived skill, or what he calls 'professional reputation', as one of the three resources that are the essence of presidential power. Yet students of the presidency who employ quantitative methods have found little or no systematic relationship between variations in skill evaluations and variations in success. George Edwards reports thai similarly situated Congressmen are not especially more likely to support highly esteemed presidents than lowly esteemed presidents. Fleisher and Bond similarly find that once contextual variables have been controlled for, there is no pattern suggesting that presidents thought to be highly skilled do better with Congress.

Das Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB) führt jedes Jahr Befragungen zur Gewinnung von Daten für die Berufsbildungsplanung durch. Dabei werden u.a. Auszubildende aus allen Berufen als direkt Betroffene zu ihrem Ausbildungserleben befragt. Ziel ist dabei nicht die Quantifizierung des Ausbildungserfolges, sondern eine möglichst umfassende Beschreibung des Ausbildungsgeschehens. Der Beitrag referiert Ergebnisse aus der zweiten Hauptbefragung, bei der es aus der Sicht der Auszubildenden um den wichtigsten Aspekt bzw. den prägendsten Eindruck von Ausbildung geht. Für die Befragung wurden drei Erfolgsdimensionen (Brauchbarkeit, Anforderungsniveau und Attraktion) ausgewählt. Die hier vorgelegte Bestandsaufnahme und schlaglichtartige Rückschau auf den Ausbildungsverlauf aus der individuellen Sicht der Bildungsteilnehmer weist daraufhin, daß die Lehrpläne, die die Ausbildung inhaltlich festlegen, mit den Vorstellungen, Bedürfnissen und Wünschen der Auszubildenden nicht ausreichend kompatibel sind. Eine Verbesserung der Ausbildung im dualen System könnte daher z.T. schon durch eine Beteiligung der Auszubildenden bei der Erarbeitung von Ausbildungsordnungen erreicht werden. (ICH)

Students' attitudes toward computers are important for success in computer literacy programs. Teachers' attitudes are important for the adoption of innovations, such as computer-based instruction, in their classrooms. This study of 43 preservice teachers in programs for hearing-impaired students examined the effects of age, sex and computer experience on the attitudes (computer anxiety, confidence and liking) measured by the Computer Attitude Scale. Overall, computer experience corresponded with positive computer attitudes, and age and sex had no significant effects. The implications of this finding are discussed in terms of teacher training and the need for additional research.