Reviews and analyzes the politicization of investigations of child abuse, emphasizing the issues of veracity and substantiation of child abuse reports. Scrutinizes recent major litigation illustrating the loss of professional objectivity. Political and ideological agendas are undermining the credibility of the mental health and social work…

Discussion of scientific journals and the use of electronic tools focuses on a study in New Zealand that investigated the feasibility of CD-ROM instead of printed journals for scientific publishing. Highlights include software choice; prototype publication; sampling method; document delivery; credibility and durability; and future possibilities.…

Examines the failure of colleges of education to address racial diversity and teacher preparation issues. Research supports that teacher immediacy, or communication that facilitates physical and psychological closeness, positively influences teacher effectiveness, credibility, and the teacher/student relationship. Teacher trainers must become bold…

In this paper,we report the importance five women community college, college, and university presidents place on certain leadership tenets. Interestingly, the advice they offer for other women who aspire to leadership often ties to the perceived importance of certain tenets. We report these data and speculate about implications for future women…

The Advertising section of the Proceedings contains the following 18 papers: "The Birth of Adwatches: Political Advertising Becomes Front-Page News" (Jennifer Greer); "A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Effects of Source Credibility on Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions" (Kak Yoon, Choong Hyun Kim, and Min-Sun Kim);…

The question of whether academicians are or should be ethical requires serious discussion, especially given the presence of select instances of unethical behavior among some professionals. One history professor responded to claims that he was a boring lecturer by presenting videotaped instruction; one English professor failed a student on an exam…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 10 titles deal with the following topics: (1) press bias in Northern Ireland; (2) the nature of news media selection; (3) the agenda-setting function of the press; (4) a training program for newsroom supervisors using video taped…

This resource guide is intended for local school district personnel involved in planning activities for establishing educational priorities, phase two of the Local Planning and Assessment Process (LPAP). Information is presented on the development of performance indicators and the validation of perceived needs. The guide is organized in two…

The highly rated television program series, "All in the Family," was used to test the relationship between attitudes espoused by televised characters and attitudes held by viewers of this type of television programing. On the basis of survey questionnaires, it was condluded that people who hold dogmatic and, especially, racist beliefs find…

Three presentations are provided from Symposium 16, Improving Human Resource Development (HRD) Practice through Research, of the Academy of HRD 2000 Conference Proceedings. "Why HRD Practitioners Can Lack Respect: Sizing the Credibility Gap between What Top Managers Want and HRD Professionals Deliver" (Robert L. Dilworth, Timothy…

The Mass Communication and Society section of the Proceedings contains the following 17 papers: "Interactivity and the 'Cyber-Fan': Audience Involvement within the Electronic Fan Culture of the Internet" (Vic Costello); "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Public Affairs Media Use and Political Orientations" (Kim A.…

Reflects on Steward and Steward's exploration of memory of touch--and aspects of the situation in which touch is experienced--and considers some of the ways in which research on children's remembering can be applied to the difficult task of assessing what child witnesses can remember about salient and often difficult experiences. (AA)

Discusses whether it is possible for a medical visit to inform a child abuse investigation, whether children share common experience in a medical visit and in a touch situation, the importance of initial interview, and the need for training of investigative interviewing with children. (AA)

This paper uses a comparative approach to investigate the ethical policies and practices of Australian and American universities. In Australia, 26 institutional surveys were returned in which institution heads responded to questions about the professional ethics of faculty, the ethics of student assessment, research ethics, and the ethical element…

Top officials at Enron abused their power and privileges, manipulated information, engaged in inconsistent treatment of internal and external constituencies, put their own interests above those of their employees and the public, and failed to exercise proper oversight or shoulder responsibility for ethical failings. Followers were all too quick to…