This study evaluated the extent to which 14 research skills were enhanced by science undergraduates' participation in an undergraduate research experience (URE). Fifty-seven undergraduates self-rated their ability to perform the skills at the beginning and end of the URE. Faculty mentors' ratings of their respective interns' skills served as an objective measure of intern skill level. Mentor and intern data revealed that the URE enhanced some skills better than others. At the end of the URE, female interns rated their ability to understand concepts in their field significantly lower than did male interns. Female interns also tended to perceive less of an increase in their ability to formulate research hypotheses than did male interns.

We developed the Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory (SWAI) to measure the relationship in counselor supervision. SWAI was based conceptually on the work of Greenson (1967), Pepinsky and Patton (1971), and others. Three supervisor factors (Client Focus, Rapport, and Identification) and two trainee factors (Rapport and Client Focus) were extracted by factor analysis. The scores on the SWAI were found to possess adequate scale reliability, and evidence of convergent and divergent validity for the SWAI was established by examining its relation to selected scales from the Supervisory Styles Inventory (Friedlander & Ward, 1984). Trainee scores on the Rapport and Client Focus scales of the SWAI were significant predictors of scores on the Self-Efficacy Inventory (Friedlander & Snyder, 1983). Implications for counselor training are discussed in the context of additional research on the psychometric properties of the SWAI. This article is based in part on James F. Efstation's doctoral dissertation in counseling psychology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, under the direction of Michael J. Patton.We thank David Cole of the University of Notre Dame for his statistical consultation and Carol Skinner for her assistance with coding some of the data.

This study examined the influence of people's beliefs about the certainty of knowledge, the strength of their beliefs about a controversial issue, and their tendency to enjoy effortful thinking on their interpretation of controversial information. Ninety-six undergraduates completed an epistemological beliefs questionnaire (M. Schommer, 1990), the Need for Cognition Scale (J. T. Cacioppo, R. E. Petty, & C. F. Kao, 1984), and indicated the degree to which they believed that HIV causes AIDS. They then read a text that presented two conflicting views regarding the HIV-AIDS relationship and wrote a concluding paragraph for the text. Regression analyses revealed that the less students believed in certain knowledge, the less extreme their initial beliefs, and the higher their need for cognition, the more likely they were to write conclusions that reflected the inconclusive nature of the mixed evidence they read.

The authors investigated ways of encouraging students to consider more counterarguments when writing argumentative texts. One hundred eighty-four undergraduates wrote essays on TV violence. In Experiment 1, students given specific goals generated more counterarguments and rebuttals than controls. In Experiment 2, some participants were provided with a text outlining arguments/counterarguments; some were also asked to write a persuasive letter. Prior attitudes toward the topic were also measured. Persuasion instructions negatively affected and text (without persuasion instructions) positively affected counterargumentation and the overall quality of arguments. Text was only effective, however, for students with less extreme prior attitudes. The danger of using persuasion goals and the advantages of using more specific goals (with text) are discussed.

The effects of epistemologicai beliefs and topic-specific beliefs on undergraduates' cognitive and strategic processing of a dual-positional text were investigated. Forty undergraduates thought aloud while reading a text that presented information both consistent and inconsistent with their prior beliefs about the HIV-AIDS relationship. Epistemological beliefs about the speed of learning affected the overall number of cognitive processes exhibited, whereas topic-specific beliefs interacted with the nature of the information read to influence the specific type of cognitive processing used. Strategies for accepting or resolving apparent ambiguities in text were related positively to delayed recall; cognitive processes for developing awareness were related negatively to the number of distortions produced.Reading comprehension involves a complex interplay between reader and text characteristics. Among the many reader characteristics known to influence text comprehension are prior knowledge