In October 1998, faculty and staff at Fox Valley Technical College (Wisconsin) were asked to complete a two-part evaluation of six values: integrity, collaborative partnerships, innovation, continuous improvement, customer focus, and diversity. Respondents were asked to give each a values rating--a rating on a 1-10 scale indicating the college's…

In this first issue of Forum Focus, we summarize emerging research and practical evidence that quality matters and push forward to ask the questions: Is quality measurable? Is it malleable? We bring a youth-centered lens to our review, looking for examples that define quality from the perspective of what young people need to heal, grow and…

The author offers interview data from female and male children, adolescents, and adults in support of the notion of having two distinct modes of describing the self in relation to others--separate/objective and connected--as well as two kinds of considerations used by individuals in making moral decisions--justice and care. (Author/SSH)

Describes a study that investigated the value of various access points in online catalog records by determining their usefulness to searchers who requested location information for items. Results of a transaction log analysis of the Illinois Library Computer Systems Office online union catalog for 45 academic libraries are discussed. (LRW)

Offers practical tips and suggestions on how to conduct user surveys to evaluate library services. Topics include how trends, such as online services impact library reference services; incorporating survey questions into reference interviews; segmenting academic and public library users; questionnaire design; measuring value; and tabulating…

Examined youth gang problem in U.S. Guam. Found that changes in island traditionalism and culture wrought by modern society and modern Western individualism can isolate some youth. Concluded that gang members must be viewed as members of a culture that proposes moral visions and prescribes group behaviors for its membership. (Author/SD)

Reports on experiment that tested college students' evaluation of geographic and racial information in determining the blame in a scenario describing a bar fight. Results indicated that white northern and southern samples of students tended to rate a geographically similar yet racially different actor more favorably. (MJP)

Part of a series of articles on a new psycho-educational program that teaches antisocial youth to think and act responsibly. Discusses procedures for fostering mature moral judgment and describes the increased effectiveness of youth as peer helpers when trained in moral judgment, anger management, and other skills. (RJM)

Reports on a study of moral judgments in aggressive and nonaggressive children. Assessed moral judgment by presenting the children with stories of moral conflict in everyday life using peer rating. Results showed significant differences according to gender and no constant level of moral reasoning was measured in either aggressive or nonaggressive…

Discusses how gender differences in the value of pay, based on relative deprivation theory, explain women's paradoxical contentment with lower wages. Presents a model of pay satisfaction to integrate value-based and comparative-referent explanations of the relationship between gender and pay satisfaction. Discusses economic approaches to the…

In comparisons of intake judgments, counselors viewed clients as being more anxious, less likely to change, less motivated to solve their problems, and less likely to be satisfied with counseling than did the clients themselves. Clients judged their personal and vocational problems to be more severe than did the counselors. (Author/RJM)

Discusses cable television subscribers' perceptions and consumption patterns of television news and describes a survey that compared broadcast and cable television news viewing habits. Media dependency and media consumption are considered, attitudes toward news sources and the perceived monetary value of the Cable News Network (CNN) are studied,…

Describes a study of users' document selection behavior that was conducted to build a tentative cognitive model of document selection behavior to be used in designing intelligent information retrieval systems. Topics addressed include studies of relevance and of decision making; value judgments; and document information elements considered during…

Two studies of third, sixth, and ninth graders were conducted to determine whether the children made judgments about both justice and interpersonal relations in conflict situations. Results demonstrate that concerns with justice and interpersonal relationships coexist in judgments of male and female children. The ways in which these concerns are…

Studied possible relationship of political socialization during youth to the personal values of adulthood. Also studied influence of adult values on one's ideas about socialization of next generation. Of particular interest were societal mandates in China during the 1950s and 1960s. Parental values were found to reflect, in a general way, values…