One Approach to Formulating and Evaluating Student Work Groups in Legal Environment of Business Courses

The principal focus of this study is an investigation of whether students' grade point average (GPA) is a viable criterion for forming student work groups in the undergraduate Legal Environment of Business course. More specifically, the research focuses on the impact of: (1) GPA-homogeneous (HO) and GPA-heterogeneous (HE) groups upon student satisfaction with group processes and (2) the impact on individual student performance in both group and nongroup assignments. Data obtained from fourteen HE and fourteen HO student groups, in four separate Legal Environment of Business classes consisting of a mix of Management, Marketing, Computer Information Systems, International Business, Financial Services, and Accounting majors, generated a number of significant results. The most surprising observations dealt with the behavior of low achievers whose individual grades showed substantial improvement after working in HO groups. Researchers who are assessing pedagogical methods which serve to engage a student's active learning and motivation should find these results to be of interest. In addition, the beneficial impact on task and relationship behaviors observed in this study should provide solace or a sense of reward to the larger set of academicians, across disciplines, who attempt to impart realistic organizational skills to their classes.     

Estimating the size of criminal populations

The estimation of total population size for various phenomena of crime is an important factor critical for criminal justice policy formulation and criminological theory development. In this paper, methods are discussed for estimating the size of a criminal population from police records. Capture-recapture analysis techniques, borrowed from the biological sciences, are used to predict the size of population for migrating (or fleeing) fugitives and for street prostitutes. Heterogeneity and behavioral responses to previous police encounters are identified as major complicating factors. The basic problem is that the police records are virtually unaffected by a potentially large pool of cryptic criminals. It is shown how independently collected auxiliary data can address this problem.     

North Korea’s perspective on the U.S.-North Korea peace treaty

Kim Byong Hong is deputy director of the Institute for Disarmament and Peace, Pyongyang, DPRK. This paper was presented at a conference in Pyongyang in fall 1994.     

A multilevel analysis of fertility behavior in Korea

This analysis of the socioeconomic determinants of fertility behavior in Korea develops a model that simultaneously considers both individual and community-level differences. The model includes 3 fertility process components: onset, early fertility, and later fertility, which are defined by reference to maternal age. The analysis traced the effects of respondents' education and childhood residence through their intermediate consequences for work experience before and after marriage, husbands' education and occupation, current residence, childhood mortality, and sex composition of offspring. The data were derived from the 1974 Korean National Fertility Survey. The results of this analysis indicate that socioeconomic development results in increased age at 1st birth and reduced number of children. Socioeconomic development is accompanied by desires for smaller family size, creating the conditions for fertility decline even in the absence of a national family planning program. The results for early fertility supported the hypothesis that there would be no effect of employment in the modern sector before marriage on fertility before age 30 years in traditional contexts, but a positive effect in transitional contexts. Aside from age at 1st birth, none of the micro coefficients were statistically significant in explaining the early fertility model. For later fertility, the relationships between micro and social context variables were negative, as hypothesized, but dampening effects of development due to family planning were not detected. Childhood residence played a small role in explaining fertility measures, but women's education did not work either additively or interactively.     

Book reviews

Caspian Gas. Ottar Skagen. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997, xii, 95 pp, £12.50

Ethnic Conflict in the Post‐Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis. Leokadia Drobizheva, Rose Gottemoeller, Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Lee Walker (editors). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xv, 366 pp, $59.95 hardback, $24.95 paperback

Contested Borders in the Caucasus. Bruno Coppieters (editor). Brussels: VUB University Press, 1996, 204 pp

The Republic of Armenia, From London to Sevres to London, February‐August 1920, Vol. III. Richard G. Hovannisian. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1996, xx + 534, preface, illus, notes, maps, glossary, biblio, index, hardcover, £35

The Republic of Armenia, Between Crescent and Sickle: Partition and Sovietization, Vol. IV. Richard G. Hovannisian Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1996, xii + 496, illus, notes, maps, glossary, biblio, index, hardcover, £35

Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, Second edition. Ludwig W. Adamec. Lanham, MD, USA and London, UK: The Scarecrow Press, 1997, 499 pp, chronology, bibliography, $58 hardcover

State and Tribe in Nineteenth‐Century Afghanistan. The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826–1863), Christine Noelle, Curzon Press, Richmond, Surrey, 1997, 439 pp

The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study, Sayed Askar Mousavi, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1995, 270 pp. ISBN 0–7007–630–5

A History of Ottoman Architecture. Geoffrey Goodwin. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997, 511 pp, illus, plans, biblio, glossary, index, £27.50

Tribal Rugs. Treasures of the Black Tent. Brian W. MacDonald. >Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 302 pp, illus, index, £35

Jewish Carpets. A History and Guide. Anton Felton. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors Club, 1997, 199 pp, illus, biblio, index, £35

Cobalt and Lustre. The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, Emst Grube, London and Oxford: The Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1996, 348 pp, illus, biblio, index, £135

China. The Silk Routes. Peter Neville‐Hadley. London and Connecticut: Cadogan Books, UK, and The Globe Pequot Press, USA, 1997, 544 pp, maps, index, £15.99/$21.95, paperback