Although vouth workers frequently undergo in-service training, methodological shortcomings in evaluations of these programs often obscure the effects. This article reports
on a field experiment that randomly assigned school counselors, juvenile court staff,
and a variety of other youth workers to a training (experimental) or control group. Results
support five of eight hypotheses comparing trainees with controls in terms of (1) tech niques such as reinforcement and (2) certain attributes of interpersonal relations with the
youths in caseloads as well as with these youths' parents and friends. Shortcomings in the
content of the training program appear responsible for inconclusive results on one
hypothesis and lack of verification of two others.
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