Rapport traditionally has been measured in therapy or in other one-on-one relationships such as with roommates. As yet, no scale is available to measure professor-student rapport. In this study, 51 undergraduates created items to measure professor-student rapport, and subsequently, 195 different college students rated their agreement with items based on their professor. Factor analysis revealed 1 meaningful component of professor-student rapport represented by 34 items. Rapport correlated with professor immediacy, providing convergent validity. Hierarchical linear regression with immediacy entered first and rapport entered second revealed significant improvement in prediction of student attitudes toward the instructor and the course as well as student motivation, perceptions of learning, and self-reported grades. Thus, we propose that professor-student rapport as measured by the current scale serves as a useful predictor of valuable student outcomes.

Practitioners in rural areas face particular challenges in providing psychological services, ranging from disparate rates of mental disorders to unique circumstances in treating special populations. In this article, we discuss the burden of mental disorders in rural areas, current trends in integration of mental health care and primary care, and unique concerns practitioners face in treating two special populations in rural areas (children and families, and older adults and their caregivers). Implications for practice are also discussed.

In this study, the authors assessed the psychometric properties of the Professor-Student Rapport Scale, the first scale to measure professor-student rapport. The scale was found to have adequate test-retest and internal-consistency reliability. In addition to these findings, measures used to determine convergent validity included the Working Alliance Inventory, a social support scale, and a measure of verbal aggressiveness. The rapport scale was found to significantly correlate in the expected direction with these measures. Specifically, the rapport scale correlated positively with the Working Alliance Inventory and the social support scale and correlated negatively with the verbal aggressiveness scale. Applications are discussed in terms of using the scale to identify areas of improvement in teaching practices and the potential usefulness of the scale for predicting student outcomes.

Because of the dearth of available partners, older women looking to date may have to relax their dating standards to find a dating partner, perhaps accepting a life situation that is not what they had hoped for. However older women may be reluctant to sacrifice an often recently-gained lifestyle free of caregiving obligations. Older men, on the other hand, have a large pool of potential dating partners and do not face the same dilemma. We compared Internet dating profiles for 100 older adults and 100 younger adults, and found that older adults (and especially older women) were more selective than younger adults when it came to the age, race, religion, income, and height of a prospective dating partner. However, older adults were willing to travel substantially farther than younger adults to meet the right partner. These findings paint a clear picture of older Internet daters as eager to meet the right person, but not desperate to meet just anyone.

Rapport between students and teachers leads to numerous positive student outcomes, including attitudes toward the teacher and course, student motivation, and perceived learning. The recent development of a Professor-Student Rapport scale offers assessment of this construct. However, a Cronbach's a of .96 indicated item redundancy, and the 34-item scale is unwieldy in a survey-heavy culture. In addition, the most valuable outcome of student learning is actual grades, which remained to be assessed. In the current study, we relied on principal component analysis to reduce the number of items on the Professor-Student Rapport scale and examine predictive power of fewer items. We measured traditional student outcomes such as attitudes, motivation, and perceived learning. We also assessed end-of-semester grades to remove any potential student bias in learning or grade reporting. Six rapport items concerning student engagement and enjoyment of a course predicted all student outcomes, including course grades.

Significant cancer risk factors exist in the target population in comparison to available national data and Healthy People 2010 targets. More focused cancer prevention and early detection efforts should be initiated for this underserved population. Future research is needed to (a) determine the effect of acculturation on cancer risk factors and (b) develop culturally appropriate interventions to improve the effectiveness of cancer prevention and early detection interventions in this subgroup of Asian Americans.

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This study of 167 nurses in 10 rural Georgia agencies examines the relationships among personal characteristics, factors of job satisfaction, autonomy, and job retention. The findings indicate that, contrary to expectations, personal characteristics (e.g., age, education, salary, marital status, and number of dependents) are not strong predictors of job retention in this sample. Some of the factors of job satisfaction do correlate negatively with indicators of impending job change, but the strongest relationships were those related to nursing autonomy. The study concludes that, of the variables studied, autonomy was the most effective predictor of job satisfaction and intention to remain in the current position.