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Recent years have witnessed an increased emphasis on the professional development of undergraduate psychology students. One major thrust of this professional development has been on research that results in a convention presentation or journal publication. Research leading to journal publication is becoming a requirement for admission to many graduate programs. It is therefore important to assist undergraduate students in the accumulation of skills required to conduct research and to write articles for publication. To help students in these efforts, several exercises involving the use of a journal that only publishes undergraduate students' research were conducted. The journal is intended to teach students about statistical, design, and American Psychological Association (APA)-format issues for empirical studies and literature reviews. Participants for this study were students in statistics, research methods, and personality classes at private and public universities in Nebraska, Kansas, and Arkansas. Students were asked to perform eight exercises. Their narrative reactions to the exercises indicated that they found the journal articles written by undergraduates helpful in gaining insight into the uses of statistical techniques and research methods, as well as clarification about APA-style writing. (MKA)

This paper discusses the teaching of a career development course in college. The stated goals of the course are to increase students' knowledge about themselves, about postgraduate educational and occupational opportunities, and about job entry skills. The mechanics of the course are described, including its length, format, written assignments, videotape programs and booklets, career inventories, out-of-class skill development tasks and grading. The course content is described, noting use of paper and pencil exercises; small group in-class discussion; use of career inventories; graduate education, including graduate study in psychology; world of work; decision-making; job search skills and resume writing; and interviewing. Previous evaluations by students of the course are described. Students' comments are interspersed in the descriptions of course mechanics and course content. A list of selected readings for career development in psychology and a reference list of career information are included. (ABL)

The literature on undergraduate field placement programs reveals differences in approaches to program evaluation. Included in research literature are descriptive accounts, as well as those focusing on characteristics of the program, student evaluation of field programs, or those assessing the program's influence on students. This study pre- and post-tested placement and comparison groups on four themes that were obtained from a factor analysis of the Skills Checklist of Placement Experience (SCOPE). The themes were client testing, therapeutic interaction, reporting and writing, and non-therapeutic interaction. Students (N=77) were upper class psychology majors attending universities having dissimilar undergraduate populations. Analysis of covariance revealed significant differences between placement and comparison groups on the first three activity themes. Findings support the arguments of field placement advocates who claim that placement experiences can enhance learning by emphasizing both thinking and doing. Results also support SCOPE's utility for assessing placement settings at different institutions. (Author/ABL)

The purpose of this paper was to identify the role of several person variables (gender, mathematics competency, attitudes toward statistics, computer competency, and grade point average) contributing to success in introductory statistics. The performance of 103 students on four examinations during a semester constituted the dependent variable. A two-by-two factorial design with two groups for gender and two groups for each of the four self-report variables was used. The results of analysis of variance failed to reveal a difference between men and women and between high and low groups on mathematics competency, computer competency, and attitudes toward statistics. A significant difference was found in test performance between high and low grade point average groups and a significant interaction was found between gender and mathematics competency. The interaction showed that women had lower scores than men when both reported having less mathematics competency. Findings suggest that the role of person variables depends, in part, on the operational definition that investigators use. (Author/YP)

Previous research has shown that career preferences are dependent upon the words and images that individuals associate with various occupations. The present study sought to identify differences and similarities between college students' and social workers' views toward social work. College students majoring in psychology (N=25) and social workers (N=18) described their first reaction to the term "social workers"; their image of social workers; and their impressions about social workers' tasks, type of clientele, and entry level salary. The analysis relied primarily on content analysis and the assessments of three blind "judges." In general, the college students gave more negative evaluations to social work. Students and social workers also differed in their views about the kinds of activities in which social workers engaged and in the types of clientele with whom social workers worked. However, students had accurate perceptions about social workers' gender, age, social class, and income. Overall, students had less favorable set of words and images about social work than did social workers. Additional research is needed to identify how and when students acquire these words and images. (Author/ABL)