Hint of the Month and News Update - March, 2003
 
    Positive and Negative Items
    Positive Doesn’t Always Mean Good or Desirable
    In the Counsellor Report provided to Prepare Administrators, the items in each content area are listed and either (+) or (-) appears in front of each item.  These symbols simply indicate the direction of the scoring that applies to each item.  Agreement with a (+) item contributes to a high score in the content area of that item and agreement with a (-) has the same effect.   

    Example:  Role Relationship 
     

       (+)  89. A career can be equally important to a man or a woman. 

       (-)  117. If a couple has young children, the wife should not work 
          outside the home.

    A high score in this content area indicates an equalitarian attitude towards marital roles and would be obtained by agreeing with the (+) item and disagreeing with the (-) item. 

    The (+) and (-) should not be taken to indicate positive and negative in a way that suggests that equalitarianism is positive or good and that traditionalism is negative and bad.  The symbols simply indicate the direction of the scoring. 

    Of course, sometimes the positive and negative scoring does clearly correspond to good/desirable and bad/undesirable, as in the case of the satisfaction content areas.  This is simply due to the fact that it is obvious that it is better to be highly satisfied than dissatisfied. 

    It is certainly not so obvious in the following content areas and so care should be taken when talking about positive and negative items in these areas: 
     

               Role relationships 
               Couple Closeness 
               Family Closeness 
               Couple Flexibility 
               Family Flexibility
     
    In the case of the closeness and flexibility items, EXTREME high or low scores may indicate matters of concern.  For example, either excessively and suffocatingly close relationships or excessively disconnected relationships can be identified from either (+) or (-) responses to item 150. 
     
      (+) 150.  Our family liked to do things with only members of the immediate 
                     family
    Agreement with this (+) item could be a matter for concern, possibly indicating excessive closeness.  However,whether this is the case would depend upon the pattern of responses to the other items in the Family Closeness content area. Remember, the (+) and (-) symbols simply indicate the direction of the scoring. 

    News Update:  

    Prepare-CC (for cohabiting couples intending to marry) packs may now be ordered (see the December 2002 newsletter on our website for details). We have completed the printing of these materials, the scoring program is now finished and we have completed testing the system.  Prepare-CC is now fully functioning.  Administrators who pre-ordered these materials should have received them by now. 

    As we indicated in the last Diary, processing  for the old (pre-version 2000) versions of the Prepare-Enrich inventories is no longer available.  If you have not yet updated your accreditation to Version 2000 please see the list of Training Days and update as soon as possible.