The Career Adapt-Abilities Scale in Macau: Psychometric characteristics and construct validity

The purpose of the study was to determine if the CAAS could be used with middle school students. Currently no study has been done for the application of CAAS on middle school students. We examined the reliability and validity of the Career Adapt-Ability Scale (CAAS) in Macau for middle school and high school students. The CAAS consists of four scales, each with six items, which measure concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. We tested the internal consistency and factor structure with 270 middle school students and 188 high school students. We also compared students' performance on CAAS in terms of gender and age. The results indicated that internal consistency estimates for the subscale and total scores were good for both high school and middle school students. The factor structure was quite similar to the one computed for combined data from 13 countries (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). In addition, we found that high school students scored significantly higher than middle school students on the CAAS scales. Based on the results, the CAAS-Macau Form appears ready for use by researchers and practitioners who wish to measure adaptability resources among middle school and high school students in Macau.     

高中生应对活动的研究

目的:了解高中生应对活动的特点。方法:采用中学生应对方式问卷、自编的两个具体应激情境下(考试失败与人际关系紧张应激情境)的应对问卷KC与RC为调查工具,对河南省三所中学的466名高中生进行调查。结果:(1)自编的应对问卷KC、RC具有较好的信效度。(2)高中生在面临应激情境时,较多地采取问题解决这一积极主动的应对方式。(3)同一个体在不同应激情境下的具体的应对活动表现出较大的差异性,同时又表现出一定的一致性。结论:应对是个体与具体应激情境相互作用的结果。     

青少年学生的自立人格

经过5个步骤编制出了人格特质词的《大学生问卷》、《高中生问卷》、《初中生问卷》和《青少年学生问卷》,分别对大学生、高中生和初中生进行调查和探索性因素分析。结果发现：①《大学生问卷》显示的自立人格包括主动性、开放性、人际责任、积极性和独立性五个维度;②《高中生问卷》显示的自立人格包括人际开放与责任性、灵活与独立性、主动性和行为责任四个维度;③《初中生问卷》显示的自立人格包括主动与行为责任、开放性、人际责任、积极性、灵活与独立性五个维度;④《青少年学生问卷》显示的自立人格包括灵活与独立性、责任性、主动性、人际开放四个维度。最后,对自立人格构念的合理性、自立人格中“开放性”与“责任性”维度的特点、青少年学生自立人格结构的一致性程度以及本研究在探索自立人格结构方面的优劣等问题进行了讨论     

Mental health of Iranian high school and college students

The objectives of this study were to investigate the mental health of Iranian high school and college students with regard to sex differences and to compare the results with those from other countries. The sample included 159 high school students (79 boys, 80 girls) and 160 college students (80 boys, 80 girls). The Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire was used to measure free floating anxiety, depression, phobia, obsession, and somatization. Significant effects of group and sex were noted for phobia, but for depression only the main effect of group was significant. For other scales neither the main effects of group and sex nor their interactions were significant. Iranian college students showed more anxiety than their British peers.     

Measurement of social-evaluative anxiety in junior high school students

This paper provides some initial normative and validity data on the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) and the Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) scales for junior high school students. Findings indicated: the level of social-evaluative anxiety does not significantly vary during the junior high school years or between sexes, junior high school students report similar levels of FNE to college students but less SAD, a significant positive correlation between treatment subjects' SAD scores and peer sociometric ratings of social-evaluative anxiety, and subjects treated for social anxiety reported significantly less SAD and FNE at follow-up assessment. Recommendations for future research and clinical use of the SAD and FNE are offered.     

A Randomized Trial of Internet-Delivered Treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder in High School Students

Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) has been shown effective for university students with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and public speaking fears. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the promising results can be transferred to high school students suffering from this condition. A total of 19 speech-anxious high school students with SAD were randomized either into 9 weeks of Internet-delivered CBT or to a wait-list control group. Significant improvements were found on measures of social anxiety, general anxiety, and depression. Effects were maintained at 1-year follow-up. The average within- and between-group effect sizes (Cohen's d) for the primary social anxiety scales at posttest were 0.98 and 1.38, respectively. However, the average number of completed modules in the CBT program was low. Although compliance can be improved, the results suggest that Internet-based guided self-help is effective in the treatment of high school students with SAD.     

How many fidgets in a pretty much: A critique of behavior rating scales for identifying students with ADHD

The school psychologist's role and responsibilities for meeting the needs of students with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have been expanding in recent years. Students with this disorder present refractory problems that may involve the school psychologist in the assessment and diagnosis of ADHD. Rating scales commonly are used, sometimes in conjunction with other techniques, for assessing and diagnosing ADHD. They often are presented as an objective way to quantify the severity of a child's behavior in comparison with a normative standard. Because rating scales have become such an integral component in the identification of children with ADHD, school psychologists should understand the limitations associated with this methodology. In this article we first describe behavior rating scales and difficulties in the use of cutoff scores to identify students as ADHD. Second, we describe how problems with interobserver agreement hamper the validity of rating scales and the subsequent conclusions that can be drawn about students' behavior. Finally, we present recommendations for obtaining more reliable and valid information from rating scales.     

General and specific self-esteem in late adolescent students: race x gender x SES effects

This study assessed the effects of gender, race, and social class on the general and area-specific self-esteem of high school students. One hundred and ninety-five high school students served as subjects in a 2 (gender: male, female) X 2 (race: black, white) X 3 (social class: low, middle and high) factorial design. The Rosenberg General Self-Esteem, the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept, and the Brookover Self-Concept of Ability and School Achievement scales were the measures of either general or specific self-esteem. Females, whites, and lower social class adolescents were consistently lower in their self-esteem scores than were males, blacks, and upper social class teenagers, respectively. White females were found to be lower in general and happiness self-esteem than all other gender by race subgroups. High SES white students were lower on the happiness and behavior self-esteem measures than black students and white middle-class students. Black males and white females were less confident in their school ability than were black females and white males.     

Engaging the Student Voice in Dialogue with Section 50 Inspection Criteria in Church in Wales Primary Schools: A Study in Psychometric Assessment

The inspection criteria for schools with a religious character within the state-maintained system in England and Wales require the sponsoring body to report on aspects of the distinctiveness of the school ethos and on school worship. This article argues that taking into account the student voice in these areas could enhance the inspection process. Findings are reported for a pilot study conducted among 1,899 students between ages 9 and 11 years, attending year-five and -six classes within Church in Wales primary schools. On the basis of this pilot study, six short scales were constructed to assess student attitude toward: school ethos, school experience, school teachers, relationships in school, school environment, and school worship. The data reported satisfactory internal consistency reliability for each of the six scales. The scales are recommended for further application.     

The new MAACL scales with adolescents: preliminary reliability and validity determinations

This study reports on the reliability and concurrent validity of both the trait and state forms of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) with a high school population, age range of 14-16 years and educational range of 9th and 10th grades (N = 403). Alphas of the four scales (anxiety, depression, hostility, and positive affect) ranged from .67 to .91. Correlations with a check-list of stress-related symptoms and an inventory of the number of extracurricular activities in which the students participated were significant and in the expected direction. Means and standard deviations on the MAACL scales were similar to those of college students. Sex differences were found on some of the scales. The findings indicate that the MAACL is sufficiently reliable and valid to warrant additional use with an adolescent population.     

Evaluating the AWARE Inventory as a measure of relationship factors among a sample of high school students

The Awareness of Attitudes and Relationship Expectations (AWARE) Inventory was administered to 160 high school students in Wyoming. Factor analysis showed the inventory did not have the expected 11 dimensional factor structure. Most of the intended 10-item scales yielded unacceptably low estimates of internal consistency reliability. Through an iterative process, one internally consistent scale of 17 items (alpha = .80) was derived. Researchers should be careful to evaluate the AWARE Inventory with their own samples before proceeding under an assumption that its scales reliably assess the 11 dimensions expected.     

Relations of Eating Disorder Symptomology with Perceptions of Pressures from Mother, Peers, and Media in Adolescent Girls and Boys

This study examined the relations of adolescents’ perceptions of pressures from the media, their mothers, and their peers with the development of eating disorder symptomology. Participants were 333 male and female adolescents in high school grades 10–12 from a suburban area of the Midwestern US. During the school day, students completed Likert-type scales of perceived pressures and eating disorder symptomology. Canonical correlations showed that students who perceived greater pressures across all three environmental contexts also reported more eating disorder symptomology. However, the patterns of relations between the perceived pressures and specific eating disorder symptoms differed by gender. Implications for future research and prevention programs are discussed.     

Development and validation of the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS)

The authors describe a new self-report instrument, the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS), which was designed to assess specific symptom dimensions of major depression and related anxiety disorders. They created the IDAS by conducting principal factor analyses in 3 large samples (college students, psychiatric patients, community adults); the authors also examined the robustness of its psychometric properties in 5 additional samples (high school students, college students, young adults, postpartum women, psychiatric patients) who were not involved in the scale development process. The IDAS contains 10 specific symptom scales: Suicidality, Lassitude, Insomnia, Appetite Loss, Appetite Gain, Ill Temper, Well-Being, Panic, Social Anxiety, and Traumatic Intrusions. It also includes 2 broader scales: General Depression (which contains items overlapping with several other IDAS scales) and Dysphoria (which does not). The scales (a) are internally consistent, (b) capture the target dimensions well, and (c) define a single underlying factor. They show strong short-term stability and display excellent convergent validity and good discriminant validity in relation to other self-report and interview-based measures of depression and anxiety.     

RESPONSE STYLE AND CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS OF RATING SCALES AMONG EAST ASIAN AND NORTH AMERICAN STUDENTS

Abstract— This report examines cross-cultural differences in response style regarding the use of rating scales Subjects were high school students 944 from Sendai (Japan), 1,357 from Taipei (Taiwan), 687 from Edmonton and Calgary (Canada), and 2,174 from the Minneapolis metropolitan area and Fairfax County, Virginia Responses to fifty-seven 7-point Likert-type scales were analyzed The Japanese and Chinese students were more likely than the two North American groups to use the midpoint on the scales, the U S subjects were more likely than the other three groups to use the extreme values Within each cultural group, endorsement of individualism was positively related to the use of extreme values and negatively related to the use of the midpoint These small, albeit statistically significant, differences in response styles generally did not alter cross-cultural comparisons of item means.     

An Application of the Prototype Scale Construction Strategy to the Assessment of Student Motivation

ABSTRACT In this study, the prototype strategy was used to develop scales for the assessment of student motivation In a prestudy, teachers generated student behaviors for each pole of the motivation dimension The prototypicality of the motivated and unmotivated behaviors for the respective poles of the dimension was rated by panels of junior high school students On the basis of these ratings, scales were constructed which differed in the mean-rated prototypicality of their items In the main study the validities of these scales were investigated using peer ratings and a psychometric test as criterion measures Using confirmatory factor analysis, it was demonstrated that, as predicted, the scales with the more prototypical items had higher validity coefficients More generally, these scales possessed satisfactory psychometric properties Finally, the merits of the prototype strategy were discussed with respect to its contributions to the substantive and structural component of construct validity     

Interest factors derived from job analytically based activity preference scales

In previous research, work dimensions were derived through factor analyses applied to job ratings on the Occupation Analysis Inventory (OAI). Activity preference scales were subsequently constructed corresponding to 21 of the resultant OAI dimensions. The research reported here involved factor and cluster analyses of the 21 activity preference scales, based on response data from 494 high school students. These analyses produced six replicable scale factors and related clusters. Five of the six factors corresponded with Holland's 1973 work-related personality types, and all of them were matchable with factors derived from more conventionally developed interest scales. To our knowledge, this is the first effort to derive interest factors from job analytically induced scales. These factors' compatibility with existing vocational interest constructs suggests a rapprochement between frameworks based on job analytic and interest research.     

Adapting the Career Development Inventory-Australia for cross-cultural research

This paper describes the adaptation of the Career Planning and Career Exploration scales of the Career Development Inventory-Australia for use in a Thai cultural context. One hundred and fifty-nine Thai high school students participated in the study. The results were compared with data from Australian students collected in earlier studies and from a group of Australian students participating in a career education program. The results indicate that only the Career Planning scale minus one biased item was found to be equivalent across Thai and Australian cultural contexts. The Career Exploration scale was found to be an unreliable measure of career exploration of Thai Year 11 males and its structure was found to be incongruent across Thai and Australian cultural contexts.     

Family environment and its relation to adolescent personality factors

Investigated the relationship between family social climate characteristics and adolescent personality functioning. The High School Personality Questionnaire (HSPQ) was administered to 80 high school students. These students and their parents also completed the Family Environment Scale (FES). Results of a stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that one or more HSPQ scales had significant associations with each FES scale. Significant variance in child behavior was attributed to family social system functioning; however, no single family variable accounted for a major portion of the variance to the exclusion of other factors. It was concluded that child behavior varies with total system functioning, more than with separate system factors.