For staff development training to be most effective, planners must determine the nature of the staff development objective (imparting knowledge, changing attitudes, or developing skills) and use the appropriate type of training activity (presentations, demonstrations, discussions, case studies, role plays, or readings) to accomplish that…

Six adult women with mental retardation were trained in sexual abuse prevention, and performance was assessed using four separate measures: pretest and posttests of knowledge, verbal report, role play, and naturalistic probes. All learned the skills but failed to exhibit them to criterion during the probes. (Author/CR)

This study reports on the evaluation of a skills-enhancement training series for direct service providers in home care that was part of a federally funded state-level initiative to improve employee recruitment and retention. The gerontological training curriculum included content to improve problem-solving, communication, and stress management…

The Irish economy has grown at an unprecedented rate over the last decade and the demand for skilled workers has increased dramatically. The Irish Standards-Based Apprenticeship (SBA) system has been one of the cornerstones of intermediate skills development with the capacity to produce high-quality craft workers and in sufficient numbers to meet…

This paper addresses whether theoretical skills, meaning skills in evaluating and improving existing theories and in creating new theories, should be taught in psychology programs. Three questions are posed: (1) Should theoretical skills be taught at all?; (2) How are theoretical skills best taught?; and (3) Which theoretical skills should be…

The community travel program for physically impaired children at the Millet Learning Center (Saginaw, Michigan) blends skills from two professions: orientation and mobility, and physical therapy. Program goals include enabling students to overcome travel fears, to learn travel skills, to learn to make adaptations necessary for successful travel,…

One of the most serious problems associated with aging concerns the decline in perceptual-motor skills, due to illness and/or lack of use based on poor motivation. Investigations of training programs to improve hand-eye coordination have yielded mixed results. A study was conducted to examine the effects of a training program to improve hand-eye…

This manual presents a course designed for persons who have direct contact with youth, on an individual or group basis, in a service capacity. The intent of the course is to train youth workers to develop a basic framework for understanding adolescent development, acquire intervention and decision-making skills, and facilitate the growth of…

This collection of training materials is designed for all persons currently or soon-to-be engaged in counseling roles, especially those working in substance abuse programs. The counseling techniques in this manual focus on the following areas of concern: (1) the nature of the helping relationship; (2) empathy, feelings, and interpersonal process…

This paper proposes that interpersonal skills be developed through the use of a skill/subskill strategy which is effected by means of an Experiential Training Unit (ETU), or series of sequential training activities. Specifically, ETU training activities focus on the development of several skills: cognitive, transformation, activation, preliminary…

The stress-inoculation paradigm for helping clients deal with pain consists of education about the psychological dimensions of pain, training in a number of coping skills relevant to each dimension, and practice in applying these skills to the noxious stimulus. Presented are two studies, the first of which represents a component analysis of stress…

The second phase of a project designed to further analyze the factors contributing to the task difficulty in Naval jobs and to determine the optimum training methods for these jobs is reported. A telephone survey of experts attempted to gather data regarding task difficulty. The results of the survey were inconclusive. As a result of the problems…

The University of Arizona College of Medicine program described extends the role of practical instructor or programmed patient to that of evaluator and teacher of neurological examinations skills for preclinical medical students. The process may help improve the quality of medical education without increasing the size of clinical faculty. (LBH)

This empirical study tested the effects of a systematically-designed training program to help medical students develop empathetic responses to patients and to attend not just to disease symptoms. Results indicate the success of the program. (Editor/LBH)

Investigates whether interpersonal skills training raises the level of facilitativeness of the trainers. Results are positive. (Author)