High-level Outcomes Research Articles

Budget effectiveness in multinational companies: An empirical examination of environmental interaction on cognitive and affective effects of two dimensions of budgetary participation

This study examines the interaction between two dimensions of budgetary participation and environmental dynamism on perceptions of budget effectiveness in multinational companies. Unique features are dichotomies of: (i) domestic and foreign subunits; (ii) two dimensions of budget participation, communication and influence; and (iii) two facets of effectiveness perceptions, higher level involvement and outcomes of budget process. Results show that benefits of budgetary participation are limited and not consistent. Significant differences between foreign and domestic subunits are apparent. The primary perceived benefits are associated with communication. Budget influence is associated with positive perceptions of top-level involvement in foreign subunits but negative perceptions of outcomes of budget process in both domestic and foreign subunits.

The relation between low- and high-level reading skills in children

Little research has explored the relation between low- and high-level reading skills in children. Efficient low-level skills, such as lexical access, may afford savings of limited attention and working memory so that attention-demanding reading activities proceed unencumbered ( Perfetti, 1985). Second, fourth, and sixth graders were tested on measures of low-level reading efficiency: the efficiency of decoding, the efficiency of semantic memory access, and verbal working-memory span. Children were also tested on measures of high-level comprehension outcomes: error detection, a test of inferencing, and the number of spontaneous inferences made while recalling a story. The results indicate that high-level comprehension does not depend on the efficiency of lexical access processes across grade levels. Verbal working memory span, however, is important in high-level comprehension. Those with larger verbal memory spans may have ready access to information for high-level comprehension.

Medical outcomes research and benign prostatic hyperplasia

Increasing health care costs and growing interest in quality care have focused attention on medical outcomes research. With regard to symptomatic BPH, patients deciding between different treatment choices need to know the likely outcomes of these alternatives, including chances for symptom responses and improved functional health and well-being. There is a paucity of high-quality outcomes research in medicine, including research that would clarify treatment outcomes for BPH. The relationship between physiologic and anatomic bladder outlet obstruction due to BPH and its symptoms, as well as quality of life, needs further study to elucidate how BPH affects health. A number of ongoing studies should provide information on the outcomes of alternative treatment strategies for BPH, the relationship between anatomic and physiologic BPH, and higher-level outcomes, such as symptom levels and quality of life.

Evaluation and Outcome Research in Community Mental Health Centers

This article reviews procedural and methodological characteristics of 121 outcome studies published by community mental health centers during the decade 1969-1979. These studies were compared with 2906 studies conducted at other mental health treatment sites. Attention is focused on the adequacy of description of sample characteristics, mental health condition treated and treatment or intervention employed, sophistication of study design, and quality of outcome measures. The findings suggest that CMHC studies are less precise and less rigorous than studies at other sites, although there appears to be consistent improvement in research quality over time. The findings raise the question of whether CMHCs generally should conduct high-level outcome research, aside from essential internal program monitoring. A feasible alternative may befor such research to be carried out at a few centers of mental health research excellence and for such findings to be disseminated to the mental health community at large.

PLANNED STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN TWO‐YEAR COLLEGES WITH TURBULENT CONTEXTS

The relationships among context, structure, and performance of two‐year colleges are explored in this article. The rationale for the ideas proposed is that the problems generated by rapidly changing environmental forces impinge on a college's internal structure and help shape the responses made by administrators. A model is proposed and a scheme explained for administrators to make intelligent modifications in policies, forms, and decision‐making methods. An abbreviated set of instruments is provided for measuring four key dimensions of structure: specialization, formaliza‐tion, standardization, and centralization. The purpose of the model and the set of instruments is to provide practitioners with tools to apply in adapting structure to maintain high level outcomes in turbulent times.

Acquisition of domain-related information in relation to high and low domain knowledge

This research was concerned with how knowledge of a given topic influences the acquisition of topic-related information. The knowledge domain studied was baseball, and a knowledge structure was postulated which included the goal structure as well as the states and actions of the game. In each of five experiments, passages of domain-related information were presented and performance was compared for individuals with high (HK) or low (LK) baseball knowledge. Experiment 1 indicated that HK recognition performance was superior to LK, and that this difference was greater for changes in “New” material that were more important in terms of the game. Experiment 2 showed that HK individuals need less information to make recognition judgments than LK individuals. Experiment 4 showed that HK individuals anticipated a greater percentage of high-level goal state outcomes than LK individuals. Experiments 3 and 5 indicated that HK individuals are superior at recalling event sequences, a finding attributed to the greater ability of HK individuals to relate successive segments of input information. The results are considered in relation to a conceptual framework and to related literature.