Padric C. Smythe

Promises to keep: An evaluator's perspective on employee assistance programs☆

This paper presents a critical review of the rapidly expanding literature concerning employee assistance programs (EAPs). Several essential features of EAPs are identified and the assumptions underlying these components are examined. The latter section of this report offers some tentative suggestions for correcting this situation so that the EAP movement will no longer suffer from the lack of a firm database upon which to build more coherent and defensible theories and programs.

Word imagery, frequency, and meaningfulness in short-term memory

Word imagery (I), frequency (F), and meaningfulness (m) were independently varied in different lists, and the effect of each investigated in the Brown-Peterson STM paradigm. Consistent with previous findings, overall correct recall was much better for high-I words (66%) than for low-I words (39%). Conversely, low-F words were recalled significantly better than high-F words (65% vs 43%). The effect of m was not significant. Although performance declined generally over trials, there was no evidence of any differential PI buildup for words that were high and ones that were low on any given attribute. Alternative interpretations were discussed.

The Adolescent Alcohol Questionnaire: Its Development and Psychometric Evaluation

Two hundred and three elementary and secondary school students were administered a preliminary version of a questionnaire which contained measures of attitudes, motivation, behavior and knowledge associated with alcohol use and abuse. This study first describes the rationale used in selecting the specific domains for assessment and then outlines the procedure employed in generating an initial pool of items for each individual scale. These large item pools were analysed to produce shorter, more reliable and valid scales that would be useful in the evaluation of a specific alcohol education program. Finally, the generalizability of the questionnaire is discussed.

A comparison of the effectiveness of word Imagery and meaningfulness in paired-associate learning of nouns

Noun imagery (I) and meaningfulness (m) were varied over an equivalent range in different paired-associate (PA) lists. In each list, one variable was systematically varied on stimulus and response sides within each of three different levels of the other variable. The results showed highly significant positive effects of I, more so on the stimulus than on the response side of pairs, these effects being qualified by a stimulus by response interaction. In contrast, m showed only a negative response effect attributable mainly to superior recall of low m responses when pair I was also low.