Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Blacksburg Manifesto And The Postmodern Debate: Public Administration In A Time Without A Name, Gary S. Marshall, Orion F. White

Public Administration Faculty Publications

The question, "Does the message of the Blacksburg Manifesto fit the times that we are in now and the times that seem to be shaping up in the next decade or longer?" is addressed by epistemologically locating the Blacksburg Manifesto and by introducing the postmodern debate to the field of public administration. The well-known Blacksburg Manifesto is described as an example of high modernism, beyond the functionalist paradigm, because although the central commitment is to reason and progress, the classic forms of administrative rationality are surpassed. It is classified as high modernism because the agency perspective, as articulated in the …

Visions For Greater Fremont Strategic Action Plan, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

The city of Fremont, Nebraska, has a proud history beginning with its founding in 1856. Wagon trails that once went through the town were soon transformed into railroads, contributing to the industrialization of the city before the turn of the century.

Today, Fremont is a city of 24,000 people. Although the population has remained relatively stable over the past 30 years, the economy has continued to grow. The City of Fremont, the Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Fremont Chamber Industrial Foundation have been actively promoting growth and development during the last decade. Although the 1980s were dominated by …

Visions For Greater Fremont Strategic Action Plan, Burton J. Reed

Publications

The city of Fremont, Nebraska, has a proud history beginning with its founding in 1856. agon trails that once went through the town were soon transformed into railroads, contributing to the industrialization of the city before the turn of the century.

S.T.A.R.T. Exchange Vol. 01, No. 01, Uno Center For Public Affairs Research

Publications

Schuyler Plan Moving Full Steam Ahead

Teaching Twenty-First Century Citizenship: Social Psychological Foundations, Allan R. Brandhorst

Civic Engagement

Effective American (U.S.) citizenship in the Twenty-first century may require a shift in the value orientation which currently characterizes American life. Two components of the American value system are becoming increasingly dysfunctional. American social science, and accordingly the social studies curriculum, has become narrowly focused on an economic model of human decision-making. Such a one-dimensional model of man, because it invalidates by omission justice-based models of decision-making, leaves American society with a reduced capacity for addressing social dilemmas, particularly commons-type problems. Secondly, American cultural life has been dominated by a heavy and one-sided commitment to primary control. Such an imbalance, …

Nebraska Department Of Social Services' Child Support Enforcement Unit Demonstration Project: Final Evaluation Report, Chris Marshall, Vincent J. Webb

Publications

In July 1987, the Nebraska Department of Social Services successfully applied to the U.S. Family Support Administration's Office of Child Support Enforcement for funds to conduct a Demonstration Project. This Demonstration Project, "The Nebraska IV-D/IV-A Intake and Phone Collection Project," was designed to increase telephone activities and improve intake practice as part of the ongoing child support collection activities. It was expected that such improvements would result in an increased level of absent parent location and an increased level of child support payment.

The Effects Of Locus Of Control And Method Of Goal Setting On Task Motivation, Paula Coburn

Student Work

Motivation is a central issue in academics. Previous research has shown that goal setting is one method of increasing motivation, with specific goals being more motivating than nonspecific, do your best goals. Research has also shown that self-selected goals increase motivation more than externally imposed goals. The present study examined the effects of self-selected, externally imposed, and do your best goals on task motivation when the personality factor locus of control was controlled by blocking subject groups. It was shown that an interaction exists between method of goal setting and locus of control. It was also found that method of …

Data Bytes Vol. 01, No. 01, Uno Center For Public Affairs Research

Publications

Welcome to the first issue of data bytes, the quarterly newsletter of the Nebraska State Data Center. data bytes will keep you informed of NSDC events and products and will include ordering information for our publications and data files.We may not be able to describe every data product, but we will usually discuss one or two new ones in each issue.

Comprehensive And Integrative Planning For Community Development, Ronald Shiffman, Susan Motley

Partnerships/Community

Over the years, both the public and nonprofit sectors have moved away from comprehensive, community-based planning strategies, lured by "quick fix" of a project-by-project development strategy. Unquestionably, these projects have directly benefited some poor individuals and families. More often than not, however, they do little to increase the economic vitality of the community in which the project is developed. To deal effectively with the issues of community disorganization and poverty and to broaden participation in the community renewal process, we must examine in today's light the originally envisioned community development corporation model and its principles. We need to plan, initiate, …

Memory Factors In Age-Related Differences In Simple Reasoning, Timothy A. Salthouse, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Deborah Mitchell

Psychology Faculty Publications

Adults in their 50s were compared with adults in their late teens or 20s in the accuracy of relatively simple reasoning decisions involving varying amounts of information. Because the magnitude of the age differences in decision accuracy was independent of the amount of information relevant to the decision, it was suggested that adults in their 20s and 50s do not differ in the effectiveness of integrating information across multiple premises. However, the 2 groups differed in the accuracy of trials involving only a single relevant premise, and thus it was inferred that 1 factor contributing to reasoning differences within the …

Congress Likely To Pass Kennedy's National Community Service Measure, The Committee On Labor And Human Resources

Special Topics, General

A bill by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the National and Community Service Act, S.1430, should have little trouble gaining congressional approval next session, unless President Bush's Points-of-Light Initiative can muster sufficient support within Congress to challenge it. Kennedy's proposal recently gained strength as a bipartisan effort when Sen. James Jeffords (R-Vt) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) signed on in mid-November as the 22nd and 23rd co-sponsors. Over twenty national service-related bills were introduced in the first session of the 101st Congress. Components of many of these bills ended up in S.1430, which further suggests that the bill stands very good …

Youth Service: From Youth As Problems To Youth As Resources, Bonnie Benard

School K-12

New Paradigm "Youth as problems, or youth as resources? Communities with problems or communities with resources?" These opening sentences to Reaching Out. a recent book on establishing community service programs for youth, encapsulate a critical issue I see confronting anyone relating to or working with young people, whether as parents, teachers, community folk, or prevention advocates and other helping professionals: the framework or perspective from which we view youth in our society today. Whether we view youth as problems or as resources determines not only our expectations for our youth and our actions towards them, but also the type of …

Social Interactions Of Secondary-Aged Students With Severe Handicaps: Implications For Facilitating The Transition From School To Work, Janis Chadsey-Rusch

Disabilities

The social interactions of a group of 10 students with severe handicaps attending a junior high school campus were described with the use of narrative recording procedures. The students were observed when they arrived at school, during lunch, and when they were engaged in vocational training. In addition, teacher perceptions of behavior were measured, and parents were interviewed regarding their childrens' future vocational opportunities and their social relationships with their peers. The results from this study indicated that (a) these youth of transition age were involved in more task-related than nontask interactions, (b) they were engaged in more interactions with …

Legal Issues In Combining Service And Learning, Michael B. Goldstein

Special Topics, General

A basic guide to the legal issues involved in programs that combine educational goals with direct involvement in the community - essential reading for any program administrator. The term "school" is used throughout to indicate any educational institution -elementary, secondary, or postsecondary, public or private - which may sponsor a student service-learning program. The term "agency" denotes any public or private community-based organization which may provide work opportunities or training or supervision of students at work sites. Portions of this analysis of legal issues in internships and experiential learning first appeared in Legal Issues Resource Booklet, by Michael B. Goldstein …

Service-Learning Advances School Improvement: A Position Paper From The International Service Learning Initiative, Barbara Gomez

Special Topics, General

The base on which the United States is built is participatory democracy -achieved only when all citizens are included in choice and decision-making. Nothing could be worse for our nation than to have our children feel alienated from the communities in which they attend school. For more than 200 years the rest of the world has been watching our progress, and as we have succeeded they have made efforts to emulate our sense of individual freedom and collective responsibility for governance.

Bringing Old And Young Together, Jane Angelis

Intergenerational

"I just can't get it all done!" It is the classic lament of the teacher stretched too thin by the demands of the classroom. Imagine what educators could accomplish if we only had enough help...

Intergenerational Programs: A Manual For Success, Ramona Frischman

Intergenerational

Although there are always social issues which much be faced by educators and by society, three issues in particular demand attention in the 1990s. Racism, sexism, and a third "ism" - one relatively new to our vocabulary - ageism. Referring to the discrimination against a group or an individual because of age, ageism is most often practiced against members of two distinct groups in our society: those over 60, and those under the ago of 18.

Training Student Organizers Curriculum (Revised Edition), Michael Zamm, Robert Ortner, Beverly Deangelis

Curriculum

This second edition of the Training Student Organizers Curriculum has been written to reflect the project organizing experiences of students, teachers and staff participating in the Council on the Environment of New York City's Training Student Organizers Program (TSO) since the first edition of the curriculum was published in 1983. We have expanded the lessons/narratives in Part I to include more information on environmental issues and have also added lessons and/or narratives for specific environmental action projects. The "how to's" of project organizing are described, step by step, in specific improvement projects in Part I, and reviewed as a total …

Differences In Interpersonal Values Among Students Involved In Volunteer Service, R. Thomas Fitch

Higher Education

A study of college students involved m. community service volunteer activities found that students' interpersonal values differed relative to whether they were involved through religious, Social Greek, or service organizations.

Omaha Conditions Survey: 1990, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

This report summarizes responses for the North Omaha sample; findings from the metropolitan sample are presented in a separate report series. After a look at the demographic characteristics of the 200 adult respondents, the report examines the North Omaha area's quality of life, employment, and housing conditions. Next, ratings of the best and worst facets of life in the Omaha area are highlighted. The fourth section of the report provides details on North Omahans' satisfaction with a variety of services, facilities and programs. The final two sections focus in greater detail on two issues - labor force experiences and crime …

Age And Experience Effects In Spatial Visualization, Timothy A. Salthouse, Renee L. Babcock, Eric Skovronek, Debora R. D. Mitchell, Roni Reiter-Palmon

Psychology Faculty Publications

Three studies were conducted to investigate effects related to age and experience on measures of spatial visualization ability. All research participants were college-educated men; those in the experienced group were practicing or recently retired architects. The major results of the studies were (a) that increased age was found to be associated with lower levels of performance on several tests of spatial visualization and (b) that this was true both for unselected adults and for adults with extensive spatial visualization experience. These findings seem to suggest that age-related effects in some aspects of cognitive functioning may be independent of experiential influences. …

A Longitudinal Test Of A Proposed Vie Theoretic Control Systems Model Of Self-Regulated Human Performance, Vernon A. Peterson

Student Work

Research by Campion and Lord (1982) suggested that the goal-setting process could be explicated by a control systems model of self-regulated behavior. However, as noted by Campion and Lord (1982), the model did not specify the process performers used to select their standards. To address this deficiency and to further specify the control process, I proposed an expanded model of human performance: an integration of VIE theory (Vroom, 1964) and control systems theory (Carver & Scheier, 1981). The model posited that performers select standards of performance based on their motivational force. It also specified when cognitive or behavioral control responses …

Memory And Age Differences In Spatial Manipulation Ability, Timothy A. Salthouse, Deborah Mitchell, Roni Reiter-Palmon

Psychology Faculty Publications

Young and old adults were asked, in 3 experiments, to make decisions about the identity of line segment patterns after either adding or subtracting line segments from the original pattern. On some of the trials, the line segments from the initial display were presented again in the second display to minimize the necessity of remembering early information during the processing of later information. Although this manipulation presumably reduced the importance of memory in the tasks, it had little effect on the magnitude of the age differences in any of the experiments. Because the 2 groups were equivalent in accuracy of …

Influence Of Feedback Specificity And Simultaneous Goals On Task Performance, David W. Furst

Student Work

A laboratory experiment was conducted examining the influence of feedback specificity and simultaneous quantity and quality goals on the performance of an assembly task including the effect of feedback specificity on perceptual and behavioral measures of intrinsic motivation. The hypotheses were framed in terms of a traditional goal setting model and a control systems-goal conflict model. Neither model was supported for the quantity performance measure in that varying the specificity of quantity of performance feedback did not result in differential quantity of performance. The traditional goal setting model was supported based on results from the quality performance measure . These …

Concurrent Validity Of The Pain Locus Of Control Scale And Its Relationship To Treatment Outcome Variables, Linda Kay Schaefer

Student Work

Studies have shown that locus of control orientation is related to emotional and behavioral adjustment to chronic pain. Researchers have begun the process of establishing the validity and reliability of the Pain Locus of Control Scale. This study was conducted to establish the concurrent validity of the PLC Scale at the time of follow-up from pain management treatment, an effort not previously undertaken. In addition, studies suggest that those persons with an Internal locus of control orientation demonstrate more favorable treatment outcomes, as compared to a Powerful others or Chance locus of control. This research examined the relationship between treatment …

Cigarette Smoking And Its Effect Upon Perceptions Of Source Credibility, Cari L. Tokheim

Student Work

This thesis examined the effect of cigarette smoking on perceptions of source credibility. Twenty-five bi-polar adjectives were used to measure five dimensions of credibility (competency, character, sociability, composure, and extroversion) developed by McCroskey and Jenson. Subjects recruited from students enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (n = 272) were assigned one of four versions of a photograph depicting either a male or female model holding a cigarette, or those same models in identical photographs with the cigarette removed. Subjects were then asked to complete the credibility scales, based upon the person depicted in the photograph.

Results from the …

Proxemic Behavior Of The Nonhandicapped Toward The Visually Impaired, Carol J. Olsen

Student Work

This study investigated spatial behavior of nonhandicapped individuals toward physically handicapped individuals. Initial seating distance was measured between a visually impaired experimenter and nonhandicapped subjects. Subjects were from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Students completed a survey and then, one at a time, went to an adjacent room to answer some follow-up questions posed by a visually impaired confederate. Distances were measured and compared to other studies measuring handicapped/ nonhandicapped interactions. Previous research showed significant differences in distance between handicapped/ nonhandicapped interactions and nonhandicapped/nonhandicapped interactions. Greater distances were chosen when interacting with a physically handicapped individual than with a …

Principals Of Good Practice For Combining Service And Learning, Ellen Porter Honnett, Susan J. Poulsen

Guides

The level of interest and sense of urgency in community and voluntary service grows greater every day. In every community, programs are being designed for participants from kindergartners to the elderly. Is there a set of guiding principles by which service programs can be designed and by which their effectiveness can be judged? Is there a set if ideas which have the potential for deepening and sustaining current movements?

The principles described on these pages reflect the grassroots experience and the thinking of thousands of people, hundreds of programs and numerous national organizations over the last several decades. They are …

Public Talk And Civic Action: Education For Participation In A Strong Democracy, Benjamin R. Barber

Civic Engagement

Civic education programs have always played a distinctive role in the American education curriculum. For the most part, however, civic education has been associated with civic knowledge and the cultivation of a cognitive faculty thought to be identical with political judgement (private judgment on public issues).

Perhaps this has been appropriate to a society which understood democracy primarily as a system of accountability in which elected representatives do most of the actual governing and "citizens" limit themselves to the passive roles of voter and watchdog.

The Civic Mission Of The University, Benjamin R. Barber

Civic Engagement

The modern American university is embroiled in controversy, fueled by deep uncertainty over its pedagogical purposes and its civic role in a "free" society. At times the college establishment seems to know neither what a free society is not what the educational requisites of freedom might look like. Nonetheless, both administrators and their critics have kept busy, for like zealots (classically defined as people who redouble their efforts when they have forgotten their aims), they have covered their confusion by embellishing their hyperbole. They wring hands and rue the social crises of higher education... apathy, cynicism, careerism, prejudice, selfishness, sexism, …