Social workers have been interested for many years in the problems of adjustment that occur in marriage, and have attempted to assist those families grappling with marital difficulties. In particular the Family Service Agency of this and other communities has concerned itself with marital discord, and through study has tried to broaden its knowledge, and refine its skills. This study is a part of the re-evaluation that is constantly underway. This study is an exploratory one. It is concerned with the strengths and the limitations of the social casework approach to marital counselling. The six cases examined are difficult ones containing problems of a serious nature. The primary reason for their selection was that they revealed the casework process in some detail. The cases have been summarized, and the casework process closely examined. On the basis of the analyses it was found that ego supportive casework, the observance of the social work principles of self-determination, individuality, objectivity and the non-judgmental attitude, and the use of community resources are extremely helpful to families experiencing marital problems. In addition, the ability of the caseworker to grasp the total functioning of the client in his family and social situation is a positive aspect of the casework approach. The chief weakness of the casework approach as it has been evolved to the present time is the policy of routinely assigning one caseworker to help both partners. When the partners are dependent and immature people they are unable to share a deep, therapeutic relationship with the same caseworker. This study supports a proposal made by Mr. Sidney Berkowitz some years ago. Mr. Berkowitz claimed that the caseworker should decide early in the contact whether serious conflicts or mild disturbance was involved, and that two caseworkers should be assigned in the former instance. Other weaknesses in the casework approach resulted from the caseworker's lack of diagnostic thinking and planning, and from their failure to observe the social work principles. The caseworkers also did not seem to realize the harmful effects of marital discord upon the children, and in only one case was direct casework help extended to a child. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The Fitness and Health Promotion (FHP) program is a relatively new program in the faculty of Health and Life Sciences and Community Services at Conestoga College in Ontario. The FHP program is designed to train and prepare individuals as qualified fitness and health consultants working in the fitness and lifestyle industry. Graduating students have the skills to complete standardized exams for accreditation. Although assessment is an essential component in higher education, the educators who are required to do it may not always understand it well. This single case study investigated the development and use of assessment tools and strategies in this higher education context through interviews with thirteen participants from three different stakeholder groups. In addition, this case study describes the perceptions around assessment of these stakeholders: educators, administrator and students. Professional development and training should be implemented for all stakeholder groups to resolve misunderstandings around assessment tools and strategies and to optimize feedback activities.

A substantial number of whiplash injuries are reported for motor vehicle accidents which produce little or no structural damage to the automobile. These injuries are predominantly associated with rear-end type accidents affecting passengers of the struck vehicle. Since passengers of the striking vehicles are not reporting as many injuries for the same accidents, occupant and vehicle dynamics experienced during low speed-rear impacts were proposed to be a major source of the whiplash claims. A review of previous research revealed that little information exists for this type of accident. In general, vehicle safety research and government regulations have been directed towards occupant mortality - not injury - in frontal collisions. Occupant dynamics research has been limited to sled testing, using modified seat structures, or out-of-date vehicle models. Full scale, rear impact, crash testing has concentrated on high impact speeds (above 30 km/h) where significant structural deformation occurs. A research program was designed to investigate the occupant and vehicle dynamics during low speed - rear impacts. Experimental research was undertaken to document the structural performance of vehicles, noting the impact speeds necessary to initiate the crush mechanisms in the rear portion of the vehicle. To facilitate this testing, a pendulum impactor, based on the government test procedures, was designed and built to consistently reproduce impact speeds below 20 km/h. A total of 56 rear impact tests were conducted with 1977-1982 Volkswagen Rabbits. The vehicle wheels were locked to represent a vehicle stopped in traffic - the most commonly reported whiplash producing accident. An anthropometric test dummy was used to represent a front seat passenger during the tests. High speed video recordings of the tests were digitized to provide kinematic information on the occupant and vehicle response. Accelerometers were incorporated into the last 24 tests to monitor the acceleration levels at the bumper mount, seat mount and within the dummy. Information obtained from this testing suggested that permanent structural damage was only visible when an impact speed between 14 and 15 km/h was experienced by the vehicle. Very little frame deformation occurs for impact speeds below this value. Below this threshold, the vehicle frame can be considered rigid; vehicle response being dominated by the compliance of the bumper and suspension systems as well as sliding of the locked wheels. The accompanying occupant response was a differential rebound of the head and shoulders off the seatback and head restraint. This relative motion between the head and torso was evident in each test and increases the potential for injury. Typical occupant response observed consisted of an initial loading and deflection of the seatback due to the occupant's inertia followed by the release of this stored spring energy as the occupant was catapulted forward. It is this elastic behaviour of the seatback which is the likely cause of whiplash injury. Resulting head velocities were found to be in the order of 1.5 - 2 times the resulting vehicle speed. Initial occupant postures which increased the distance between the torso and seatback tended to increase the dynamic loading experienced by the passenger. Analytical modelling of the vehicle was initiated as the groundwork for full occupant-vehicle simulation. A finite element model of the vehicle frame, bumper, and suspension was created. Previously obtained empirical information suggested that a non-linear bumper and suspension system connected to a rigid frame would be an acceptable approximation. A parametric analysis of bumper stiffness and braking conditions was conducted in a 30 simulation matrix. General kinematic trends of the tests were observed in the simulations, however, limitations in the material properties introduced a much stiffer response than that experimentally observed. Results from this study show that little protection is offered to an occupant during a rear end collision. Impact energy management within the vehicle may not be adequate to prevent injury. Improved occupant protection requires the highly elastic behaviour of the vehicle frame and seatback to be attenuated. This will eliminate the amplification of vehicle motion through the seatback to the occupant. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Mechanical Engineering, Department of / Graduate

This study begins with a perceived crisis of confidence in professional knowledge. The traditional, positivist, "theory into practice" approach to the development of a professional knowledge base has been found to be unable to satisfactorily explain expert action—especially in situations of complexity and ambiguity such as those routinely found in teaching. Much recent literature, however, has taken the approach that professional knowledge must be constucted by the practitioner In the context of the practice. In this view, theory is developed from practice by reflecting on one's action-related knowledge. Unfortunately, because they tend to be Intellectually isolated and routinely having to deal with many clients at once, teachers have few opportunities to use this approach. The problem addressed in this study is how to provide a professional development experience which fosters reflective activity and the personal construction of knowledge by teachers within the context of their classroom practice. The primary theoretical perspectives which underpin this study are those of "constructivism", in which learning is viewed as an active process of constructing concepts by connecting new information with prior knowledge, and "reflection as reconstruction of experience" in which reflective activity is seen as a way of reconstructing understandings within the context of practice. These perspectives, together with a brief review of related literature regarding reflection within the teaching profession, provide the theoretical framework of the study. The study consists of a case analysis of a professional development activity which was designed to promote the reflective activity of teachers. The activity gave two participant teachers an opportunity to observe and discuss videotaped recordings of each other's practice over a period of several months. The resultant discussions were audiotaped by the Investigator and transcribed for analysis. Informal examination of transcripts and analysis of metaphor were used to identify elements of teacher knowledge. Instances of reflective activity were identified using a "clue structure" or set of criteria. The study concludes that elements of teacher knowledge can be identified in a such a discussion of teaching practice, that instances of reflective activity were evident during the time period of the study, and that the professional development activity was perceived by the teachers as being of personal benefit. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This work presents an analysis of federal election voting choices in an industrial community. The voting choices were reported by a sample of gainfully employed residents of the community. A segment of the sample, those in unionized jobs in the industrial enterprises of the major employer, is submitted to quantitative analysis. A discussion of the significance of interest group formation and operation provides us with a theoretical basis. As industrial workers are less economically secure, are clustered into a relatively undifferentiated range of jobs, and are more isolated from the broad middle class, they will be more prone to form economic and political interest groups. One aspect of such formation is a high level of support for a worker-oriented and socialistic political party. The member of parliament for the constituency was the candidate of a party that appears to be both socialistic and worker oriented, the New Democratic Party (or NDP). Voting choices in favor of this candidate are understood in terms of our theory. They are studied by dividing our respondents by social characteristics. These social characteristics are of three kinds: general vital characteristics, (age, length of community residence, and place of birth), off-work characteristics (religious group membership and participation), and work-defined characteristics, (type of enterprise, union, and skill level). The general social characteristics are assumed to indicate access to community worker political culture. Off-work characteristics are important because they might supply individuals with social identities which override such a culture. At-work characteristics may provide issues that are quickly transformed into social identities influencing voting, given rationality, local worker culture, and the lack of overriding identities. When general and work-defined characteristics are used to study voting choices, a well-defined pattern is found. High rates of NDP support are associated with general vital characteristics that indicate higher access to community and regional political culture, and work-related characteristics that indicate "typical industrial workers" of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When the characteristics are studied in combination, complex patterns are found. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

This study was prompted by a staff-shortage crisis in Social Work. Because it is apparent that this manpower crisis cannot be alleviated by an increase in professional recruitment, methods must be found by which to utilize effectively persons without professional standing. Our assumptions in this study, therefore, are firstly, that tasks presently performed by professionally-trained social workers can be categorized according to specific criteria and secondly, that these tasks can then be assigned to various levels of staff, both professional and non-professional. This study deals with the former assumption, the latter assumption will be left to further research. The agency from which our study was drawn was the Children's Aid Society of Vancouver, B.C. The specific area of study in the agency was Services to Children-in-Care. As criteria for differentiating tasks we chose "worker autonomy" and "task complexity". In essence these are, respectively, the functioning of the worker in relation to his internalized professional standards, and the relative amount of activity inherent in a task. We then devised a list of tasks which we presented to a random sample of line workers, with the major aim of determining whether or not the tasks were actually performed. The list of tasks was revised on suggestions from the respondents and presented a second time. This indicated the representative nature of the tasks. In order to rate each task as to its degree of complexity and the degree of autonomy required by a worker to perform it, we selected twelve judges at random six from Children's Aid Society Staff and six from a list supplied by the British Columbia Association of Social Workers. The judges rated each task on a five-point scale for each of our two criteria. In analyzing the data we were concerned primarily with the degree of agreement among the judges as to their ratings of each task on the two criteria of "worker autonomy" and "task complexity". Our findings showed a high percentage of agreement among judges on both criteria for most tasks. This indicates that the majority of tasks can be differentiated. The findings also showed a high degree of relationship between "worker autonomy" and "task complexity" -- that is, if a task was judged highly autonomous it was usually also judged highly complex. This points to the possible redundancy of the second criterion, "task complexity". In other words, it appears that "worker autonomy" may be the important measuring instrument by which tasks can be differentiated in order to be assigned to personnel of differing competence. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study is concerned with the social work man-power problem as it exists in the social assistance sector of the public welfare field. The purpose of the study was to determine if a rational plan for the deployment of social work personnel could be devised that would result in more effective and appropriate utilization of social work staff with varying levels of training and competence. The project is an exploratory study based on Richan's suggestion that a plan for worker deployment can be more effectively developed by first determining the degree of organizational or professional controls present or required in the performance of the various tasks in a public welfare agency. A list of tasks performed in the issuance of social allowance from initial contact through to termination was drawn up by the researchers on the basis of their knowledge and combined twenty-two years experience in this area. This list of one hundred twenty-eight tasks was presented in the form of a questionnaire to seven experienced social workers carrying urban and rural caseloads in three public welfare offices. The workers were asked to determine over a two week period, by noting their daily activities, if the list was accurate, complete and unambiguous. This validated list of tasks was presented to a panel of fourteen judges holding Master of Social Work degrees and at least two years' experience in the public welfare field for rating. The rating procedures were based on a five point scale of autonomy of worker functioning required in the performance of the different tasks. Beck's definition of worker autonomy was accepted as appropriate for the purposes of this study, as it incorporates the explicitness of guides to the workers, the visibility of worker activity and the degree of required organizational support for social work standards. This method of data collection, the use of the questionnaire and the rating scale, was considered the most feasible as they were easy to administer, flexible, allowed for fine definition with a specific frame of reference, inexpensive financially and in terms of worker-judge-researcher time. An analysis of our study findings revealed that only 9 per cent of the listed tasks received 80 per cent of judge rating agreement that was necessary to establish its reliability of the ratings. It was significant, however, that the judges' ratings usually followed a pattern tending to cluster at two adjacent ratings. While it is obvious that the instrument is not yet reliable, the fact that 42 per cent of the tasks received over 60 per cent agreement is encouraging and leads the researchers to conclude that the study is going in the right direction. It was also tentatively concluded that the closeness of the ratings seemed to indicate either that the rating scale of autonomy was not fine enough to allow distinctions between adjacent ratings or that the tasks were not defined with sufficient clarity for the judges to make distinctions regarding the amount of autonomy required in the performance of the task. The judges were queried on the problems they encountered in their ratings and their remarks led the researchers to re-examine the definitions of the tasks, and although they had been validated by the field workers in the initial phase of the study, it became evident that definitions of a great number of tasks could be unclear or confusing when they were rated by the employment of the autonomy criterion. This re-examination led the researchers to revise all tasks receiving less than 80 per cent agreement. It is concluded that there is no indication that the criterion of autonomy should be rejected. Rather, if the revised list of tasks can be given to judges to rate again, it is felt that a much higher degree of reliability can be established. Should the new ratings prove to be reliable, the way will then be clear to develop a task assignment scheme to be employed in a field study. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This research report on Social Workers' Orientation to Client problems is based on the theoretical framework worked out and presented in a monograph by Andrew Billingsley, The Social Worker in a Child Protective Agency (3). Briefly, Billingsley, in his doctoral dissertation, considered in depth the reasons for the lack of professionally trained social workers in child protective services. The data to be tested in our report was the result of material accumulated in a 1967 University of British Columbia, School of Social Work thesis entitled: Social Workers' Perceptions of Child Abuse and Neglect (4). The main hypothesis in our study is that professional education and/or work experience in the field of social work will tend to influence the social workers' cognitive and psychodynamic orientations and choice of reference group. Our findings indicate that social workers with substantial work experience appeared to be associated with low psychodynamic orientations. In parts, our results differed from Billingsley and these differences are discussed in our conclusions. Our findings have also indicated the need for further research in several areas. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study evaluated the ability of nursing home staff to implement communication strategies as a result of inservice education. Seventeen subjects, from two occupational groups (patient care aides, and rehabilitation staff), were observed twice each during routine interactions with the nursing home residents. The measurement tool consisted of 11 communication behaviours, which were scored according to degree of use. There were two categories of strategies: those that could be used in all situations, and those that were appropriate only for some situations. Results were mixed: the experimental group (N=5), who attended the inservice, showed an increase in the use of latter category of communication strategies, while the control group (N=12) decreased their use of the same strategies. In the former category of strategies, no difference was found between the experimental and control groups. The discussion focused on possible sources of confound, and recommendations for further research. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

As the use of computers in engineering becomes more significant and widespread, there is a growing need for interactive computer programs which can be used with a minimum of user preparation. This thesis presents and demonstrates a system for writing interactive engineering programs in APL, a programming language. A good interactive program is sensitive to the needs of the user, and generally includes help features, default options, escape features and check features. To include all of these features in a conventionally organized program is complicated and tedious, especially for longer programs with many interaction events between the program and the user. The system presented here makes it fairly simple to include all of the above features, and provides two additional benefits: 1. The logic of the program becomes more prominent, hence easier to follow and check. 2. The program tends to be highly modular in form, making it more readable and easier to test and debug. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate