According to a survey of 148 small business employers, schools should teach youngsters basic math, reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills, along with specialized skills needed for technology, business, public service, personal service, health, and consumer occupations. Schools should also teach good grooming, healthy habits, and the…

In 3 experiments, 123, 70, and 60 college students indicated that others might reduce effort in a situation where they expect failure as a strategy to protect their perceptions of ability, but that they themselves would not. Reduced effort when threatened by failure may not be intentional. (SLD)

The Alliance for Achievement Network has given the principal of Kingston (Illinois) Elementary School a framework for bridging the gap between school and home. Since September 1990, she and other school council members have worked to adopt a school constitution, select school-community values, write goal statements, and set expectations for…

School administrators, like politicians, ministers, and police officers, inevitably draw critics because they hold highly visible jobs. Their Achilles heel is their children, who frequently suffer physical and emotional abuse, unreasonable scrutiny, and even anxiety attacks resulting from controversial decisions reverberating through the…

Examined relationship between alcohol expectancies and drinking behavior among Irish- (n=15), Italian- (n=15), and Hispanic- (n=15) American female college students. Found that, although relationship existed between drinking outcome expectancies and ethnic drinking behavior, its degree and precise nature varied by group. Different expectancy…

Preparation of teacher/scholars in nursing requires emphasis and value on undergraduate teaching, clinical practice, and scholarly inquiry. Collaboration with other doctoral programs and reward for teaching excellence are other ways to foster teacher/scholars. (SK)

Studies five undergraduate journalism and mass communication programs from across the country focusing on students' professional needs and expectations of professional job stress. Finds that, although students perceive their field as offering opportunities in several areas, their needs and expectations differ. (MG)

Study of 298 U.S. social workers revealed that interest in international practice in developing world depended on freedom to relocate, expectation of rewarding experience overseas, possession of and desire to use requisite skills, interest in foreign intercultural arena, and global-mindedness. These variables, in combination, accounted for 41% of…

Unplanned events affect everyone's career. Counselors should give up the unfounded assumption that career decisions are the logical outcome of a "true reasoning" process and broaden their view. Counselors should teach clients that unplanned events are a normal part of career development and how to generate unplanned events. (EMK)

Investigated the possible effect of instrument titles on prospective teacher ratings of child behavior. Although statistical analyses revealed no main effects, all groups (N=164) rated a normal child's behavior in the clinically elevated range on several dependent variables. Implications for education and psychology practice are discussed.…

High school students (n=237) completed the Self-Directed Search (SDS) and Task Specific Occupational Self-Efficacy Scale. A significant relationship between responses to the two instruments supports the validity of the SDS in predicting career self-efficacy. (SK)

Parents must learn to transmit a sense of high expectations to their children (related to behavior and accomplishments) without crushing them with too much pressure. This means setting realistic expectations based on their children's special abilities, listening to their children's feelings about the expectations, and understanding what…

Women often have low performance expectations for themselves but expect other women to succeed. This study finds that minority students think not only that they will do worse than other minority group members but also that their group will do poorly. Low individual and group success expectations make the results for minorities doubly troubling.…

Examines patients (N=257) with lumbar spinal stenosis preoperatively and at six months to relate patient expectation to baseline function and pain and to determine how patient expectations and preoperative function interact to predict postoperative outcomes. Results show that patients with many preoperative expectations, particularly those with…

Tested theoretical and null hypotheses concerning principals' optimism, teacher perceptions of that optimism, and school effectiveness. Teachers and principals in 50 secondary schools responded to two standard measures. Teacher perceptions of their principal's optimism and of their school's effectiveness were correlated, but the principal's…