Maximum likelihood estimation of the joint covariance matrix for sections of tests given to distinct samples with application to test equating

Consider an old testX consisting ofs sections and two new testsY andZ similar toX consisting ofp andq sections respectively. All subjects are given testX plus two variable sections from either testY orZ. Different pairings of variable sections are given to each subsample of subjects. We present a method of estimating the covariance matrix of the combined test (X ₁, ...,X _s ,Y ₁, ...,Y _p ,Z ₁, ...,Z _q ) and describe an application of these estimation techniques to linear, observed-score, test equating.The author is indebted to Paul W. Holland and Donald B. Rubin for their encouragement and many helpful comments and suggestions that contributed significantly to the development of this paper.This research was supported by the Program Statistics Research Project of the ETS Research Statistics Group.     

Understanding Asian parenting from a Rasch perspective

This study examines the factor structure of Asian child‐reported parenting from a Rasch perspective. Participants comprised 291 sixth graders (11 to 13 years) in Singapore. Six different aspects of parenting were measured, namely warmth, rejection, structure, chaos, autonomy support, and coercion. Rasch Analysis was used to transform ordinal data into linear measures; category functioning was examined; residual‐based principal components were analysed; differential item functioning was assessed; and items and subjects that were misfitting were removed. Results showed that parenting comprised six dimensions, namely warmth, autonomy support, structure‐control, structure‐warmth, chaos, and negative parenting. The findings suggest that it is important for Asian parents to provide guidance to their children (in structure‐control and structure‐warmth) and reaffirms the relevance of warmth in Asian parenting.     

Rich deontic logic: a preliminary study

This paper begins the development of new types of deontic operators, particularly ones whose semantic characterization is based on models with forward-branching time. In such models, supplemented by a choice function to model human agency, and an obligation function to introduce normative features, it is possible to develop a rich language with a variety of obligation operators, differing from one another in how they relate to time, and to the causal conditions, the causal consequences, and the logical consequences of actions. We approach these concepts making extensive use of the notion of a transition, as introduced in [M. Xu, Synthese 112 (1997) 137].     

Autonomy and defensiveness: Experimentally increasing adaptive responses to health-risk information via priming and self-affirmation

Health information is often ineffective in motivating health-behaviour change. One way to improve information effectiveness might be to highlight autonomy, which is associated with less defensiveness and more adaptive psychological functioning. Three studies assessed whether experimentally elevating autonomy led to adaptive responses to risk information about alcohol consumption. In Study 1 (N?=?104), participants completed either an autonomy prime or a neutral prime task and read either risk information about the dangers of alcohol consumption or neutral information. Among high-risk participants in the autonomy prime condition, those who read risk information reported greater autonomous motivation towards moderate alcohol consumption than did those in the neutral information condition. Study 2 (N?=?157) compared two types of autonomy prime tasks with a neutral condition. For high-risk participants who read risk information, the autonomy prime tasks elicited greater autonomous motivation, more positive attitudes and greater intentions to drink in moderation than did the neutral prime task. Study 3 (N?=?130) found that for high-risk participants who read risk information, autonomy prime participants reported less subsequent alcohol consumption than did neutral prime participants. The results are discussed in terms of the benefits of autonomy for adaptive responses to risk information.     

ZYGON 'S DUAL MISSION

The first mission of Zygon has been the exploration of the relation between Religion and Science. The second, I suggest, has been consideration of the relation between Ethics and Technology. Some articles have given attention to the relation of Religion to Ethics, or that of Science to Technology. The interaction of Ethics and Science, and that of Religion and Technology, are also significant. I give examples of articles or symposia in each of these categories and close with great hope for Zygon's future.     

Differential Method of Characterizing Gait Strategies From Step Lengths and Frequencies: Strategy of Velocity Modulation

The differential method consists of the analysis of the variation of gait parameters length, frequency, and velocity with respect to their mean values, respectively, ΔL = L — L_m , Δf = f — f_m , and Δv = v – v_m , where L_m , f_m , and v_m represent the mean values of those parameters. Assuming that the strategy of modulation of velocity implies that L and f are functions of v and that statistical analyses of ratios ΔL/Δv and Δf/Δv have established that there is a very significant linear correlation, close to 1, between those ratios, the mathematical procedure allows one to determine the equation of step length, L = a · f + b · v + K, where a and b are the slope and the intercept of the linear regression and K is close to L_m . The equation was experimentally tested on 140 gait sequences performed by 6 participants and for gait velocities ranging from 0.6 to 2.2 m/s and was found to be very representative of all individual values. The differential method provides another way of using the derivative of velocity, v = L·f, to characterize the strategy of velocity modulation, which then permits one to determine the linear equation of velocity, v = f · L_m + L · f_m — L_m · f_m , and to show that the respective parts played by each parameter in the progression velocity are approximately equal. The author establishes the uniqueness of the different linear adjustments and discusses the differential method's own modes of use, that is, interindividually or globally.     

Knowledge despite falsehood

I examine the claim, made by some authors, that we sometimes acquire knowledge from falsehood. I focus on two representative cases in which a subject S infers a proposition q from a false proposition p. If S knows that q, I argue, S's false belief that p is not essential to S's cognition. S's knowledge is instead due to S's belief that p′, a proposition in the neighbourhood of p that S (dispositionally) believes (and knows). S thus knows despite her false belief. The widely accepted and plausible principle that inferential knowledge requires known premises is unscathed.     

Split identity: intransitive judgments of the identity of objects

Identity is a transitive relation, according to all standard accounts. Necessarily, if x = y and y = z, then x = z. However, people sometimes say that two objects, x and z, are the same as a third, y, even when x and z have different properties (thus, x = y and y = z, but x ≠ z). In the present experiments, participants read stories about an iceberg that breaks into two icebergs, one to the east and the other to the west. Many participants (32–54%, in baseline conditions across experiments) decided that both successors were the original iceberg, despite the different spatial locations of the successors. Experiment 1 shows that this tendency is not due to participants failing to understand both to mean both are simultaneously the original. Similarly, Experiment 2 demonstrates that the tendency is not solely due to their interpreting the question to be about properties of the icebergs rather than about the icebergs themselves. Experiments 3 and 4 suggest, instead, that participants may understand Which is the original? to mean Which, in its own right, is entitled to be the original? Emphasizing entitlement increases the number of seemingly intransitive responses, whereas emphasizing the formal properties of identity decreases them.     

A necessity illusion for modal inferences from conditionals

Three experiments examined how people reason about what is possible or necessary when a conditional is true. Participants were asked to indicate whether it was necessary, possible or impossible for a specific instance to conform to one of the truth-table cases (pq, p¬q, ¬pq and ¬p¬q) (¬ = not), given the truth of the conditional. It was found that most participants, inconsistently, judged the pq case as necessary but the ¬pq or ¬p¬q cases as possible. Logically, these two kinds of judgments are contradictory. Moreover, a true conditional doesn’t imply that a specific instance under the conditional must be pq . Therefore, people demonstrate a necessity illusion for pq cases which contradicts their commitment to the possibility of ¬pq or ¬p¬q cases. Existing accounts of conditionals are unable to explain the contradiction and the necessity illusion. We propose an inference dissociation account and explore the theoretical implications of this necessity illusion.     

The duplication of love's reasons

If X loves Y does it follow that X has reasons to love a physiologically exact replacement for Y? Can love's reasons be duplicated? One response to the problem is to suggest that X lacks reasons for loving such a duplicate because the reason-conferring properties of Y cannot be fully duplicated. But a concern, played upon by Derek Parfit, is that this response may result from a failure to take account of the psychological pressures of an actual duplication scenario. In the face of the actual loss of a loved one and the subsequent appearance of a duplicate, how could we resist the inclination to love? Drawing upon duplication scenarios from Parfit and from Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, this paper will argue that there could be reasons for X to come to love a duplicate of Y but that these would not be identical with the reasons that X had (and may still have) to love Y. Nor (in the case of an agent with a normal causal history) could they be reasons for a love that violates the requirement that love is a response to a relationship and therefore takes time to emerge.     

The logic of ability,freedom and responsibility

The aim of this paper is to offer a rigorous explication of statements ascribing ability to agents and to develop the logic of such statements. A world is said to be feasible iff it is compatible with the actual past-and-present. W is a P-world iff W is feasible and P is true in W (where P is a proposition). P is a sufficient condition for Q iff every P world is a Q world. P is a necessary condition for Q iff Q is a sufficient condition forP. Each individual property S is shown to generate a rule for an agent X. X heeds S iff X makes all his future choices in accordance with S. (Note that X may heed S and yet fail to have it). S is a P-strategy for X iff X's heeding S together with P is a necessary and sufficient condition for X to have S. (P-strategies are thus rules which X is able to implement on the proviso P).Provisional opportunity: X has the opportunity to A provided P iff there is an S such that S is a P-strategy for X and X's implementing S is a sufficient condition for X's doing A. P is etiologically complete iff for every event E which P reports P also reports an etiological ancestry of E, and P is true. Categorical opportunity: X has the opportunity to A iff there is a P such that P is etiologically complete and X has the opportunity to A provided P. For X to have the ability to A there must not only be an appropriate strategy, but X must have a command of that strategy. X steadfastly intends A iff X intends A at every future moment at which his doing A is not yet inevitable. X has a command of S w.r.t. A and P iff X's steadfastly intending A together with P is a sufficient condition for X to implement S. Provisional ability: X can A provided P iff there is an S such that S is a P-strategy for X, X's implementing S is a sufficient condition for X's doing A, and X has a command of S w.r.t. A and P. Categorical ability: X can A iff there is a P such that P is etiologically complete and X can A provided P. X is free w.r.t. to A iff X can A and X can non- A. X is free iff there is an A such that X is free w.r.t. A.     

Two Shi‘i Jurisprudential Methodologies to Address Medical and Bioethical Challenges: Traditional Ijtihād and Foundational Ijtihād

The legal‐ethical dynamism in Islamic law which allows it to respond to the challenges of modernity is said to reside in the institution of ijtihād (independent legal thinking and hermeneutics). However, jurists like Mohsen Kadivar and Ayatollah Fa?lalla have argued that the “traditional ijtihād” paradigm has reached its limits of flexibility as it allows for only minor adaptations and lacks a rigorous methodology because of its reliance on vague and highly subjective juridical devices such as public welfare (ma?la?a), imperative necessity (?arūra), emergency (i?tirār), need (?āja), averting difficulty (‘usr) and distress (?araj), hardship (mashaqqa), and harm (?arar) without interrogating the fundamentals (u?ūl) of ijtihād. In contrast, in the “foundational ijtihād” model theology, ethics, intellect, epistemology, linguistics, hermeneutics, modern sciences, history, cosmology, anthropology, and the sources of Islamic legal theory (u?ūl al‐fiqh) interact with one another to obtain resolutions that are just and non‐discriminatory.     

On the irreducibility of the will

This paper criticizes the thesis that intending to do something is reducible to some combination of beliefs and desires. Against Audi's recent formulation of such a view I offer as counterexample a case wherein an agent who wants and expects to V has not yet decided whether to V and hence does not yet intend to. I try to show that whereas belief that one will V is not necessary for intending to V, as illustrated in cases of desperate attempts to V, one cannot intend to V without preferring to V (rather than not V) and thus one cannot intend to V without, in some sense, wanting to V (at least wanting it in preference to not V-ing). The connection of one's intentions with one's objectives, attempts, plans, and hopes is briefly treated, and some influential work by Davidson is criticized.     

The Point of Scientificity,the Fall of the Epistemological Dominos,and the End of the Field of Educational Administration

The point of scientificity, or pos,represents a place in history whereeducational administration was founded as ascience. A pos creates a field of memoryand a field of studies. A pos isepistemologically sustained in its claim forscientific status by a line of demarcation orlod. A lod is supported by truthclaims based on various forms ofcorrespondence. As these forms have beeninterrogated and abandoned, correspondence hasgiven way to coherentism and finally to testsof falsification. As falsification has shownto contain serious flaws when compared to theactual history of scientific discoveries, theentire project of a distinct and unitaryfield known as educational administration isseriously cast into doubt. Contemporaryexaminations in educational administrationdiscourse show that even when the lod hasbeen undermined by epistemological shifts, theinitial pos has remained to supportclaims regarding the project of a ``science ofleadership.' The analysis contained in thisarticle show, however, that when claims of thelod are demonstrably unsustainable, theinitial pos must be similarly abandoned. With that collapse the concept of a fieldis likewise effaced. The epistemologicalalternative is to envision fields ofstudy which do not require a lod, excepton a longitudinal basis to ascertain whether aresearch program shaped and sustained by it isprogressive or regressive. In short, there areno aprori meta-criteria to separate sciencefrom non-science in educationaladministration.     

The debate on the yan-yi relation in Chinese philosophy: Reconstruction and comments

The debate on the yan-yi relation was carried out by Chinese philosophers collectively, and the principles and methods in the debate still belong to a living tradition of Chinese philosophy. From Yijing (Book of Changes), Lunyu (Analects), Laozi and Zhuangzi to Wang Bi, “yi” which cannot be expressed fully by yan (language), is not only “idea” or “meaning” in the human mind, but is also some kind of ontological existence, which is beyond yan and emblematic symbols, and unspeakable. Thus, the debate on the yan-yi relation refers firstly to metaphysics, secondly to moral philosophy, and then to epistemology and philosophy of language. Guided by this view, this paper recalls the source of the debate on the yan-yi relation to Yijing and Lunyu, distinguishes four meanings of “yi” in Chinese philosophy, and reconstructs three arguments. These arguments are the “yan cannot express yi fully” argument, “forget yan once you get yi” argument, and “yan can express yi fully” argument. Finally, this paper exposes and comments on those principles, methods and the general tendency shown in the debate from the following five aspects: starting point, value-preference, methodology, texts (papers and books), and influences. __________ Translated from Jianghai Xuekan 江海学刊 (Jianghai Academic Studies), 2005 (3)     

FROM EVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS TO CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: ARE WE IN CONTROL?

This article discusses implicit assumptions in the conference theme to understand the complexity involved in trying to gain control of globalization, in particular: (1) We, (2) being in control (not only in cybernetic way) and (3) globalization. I introduce distinctions between single conscious agents, systems of conscious agents, and emergent we, as a collective entity understood as a Collective Being (a complex, multidimensional society to be studied with multiple, systemic knowledge) that has collective consciousness. The focus is the issue of being in control. This issue is understood as the ability to design and manage emergent processes of development.     

Memory conjunction clusters: Influence of familiarity and recollection

In the memory conjunction paradigm, the number of times that constituents of conjunction lures were studied and the method of presentation were varied. In two experiments, participants were presented with eight parent items that could be recombined at test to form a conjunction lure. The constituents that were shared between the parent items and the conjunction lures were either presented in the same words (e.g., blackmail and jailbird presented four times each for the conjunction lure blackbird) or in different words (e.g., the targets footstool, footlocker, foothill, footbridge, baseball, softball, basketball, and golfball for the conjunction lure football). In both experiments, rates of false recognition were higher in the Different condition as opposed to the Same condition. These results provide evidence that participants in the Same condition were able to utilise a recall-to-reject strategy by remembering the repeatedly presented parent word. In the Different condition, participants were not able to utilise that strategy and instead relied on the familiarity of the repeatedly presented constituents which led to higher rates of false recognition.     

Difference to One: A Nuanced Early Chinese Account of Tong

The graph tong同and its associated concepts, such as da-tong (Great tong大同) and xuan-tong (mystic or dark tong玄同), have played important roles in the development of Chinese philosophy. Yet tong has received scant attention from either western or eastern scholarships. This paper is a first attempt to remedy such regret. Unlike usual understandings of tong as sameness or unity, this paper presents a nuanced account from early China, that is, ‘difference to one,’ a definition from the Mozi墨子. This definition can be supported from etymological, textual, and lexical evidence. ‘Difference to one’ should not be solely attributed to a Mohist understanding; it in fact represents a common understanding of tong across philosophical streams in early China. This nuanced account provides new insights into the concept of tong in early philosophical texts, and furthermore breaks solid grounds for further studies of tong and its associated concepts.     

Begging the Question in Arguments Based on Testimony

Summary This paper studies some classic cases of the fallacy of begging the question based on appeals to testimony containing circular reasoning. For example, suppose agents a, b and c vouch for d’s credentials, and agents b, d, and e vouch for a’s credentials. Such a sequence of reasoning is circular because a is offering testimony for d but d is offering testimony for a. The paper formulates and evaluates restrictions on the use of testimonial evidence that might be used to deal with such problematic arguments. One is called the Non-repeater Rule: in an extended sequence of argumentation based on testimony, once a source x has been appealed to at any given point in the sequence, that same source x must never be appealed to again at any next point in the same sequence.     

Peer Influence in Elementary School: The Importance of Assessing the Likeability of Popular Children

Abstract

We examined the degree to which children perceive influence behaviors and influence over social norms from different types of high-status children to vary in a sample of 453 3^rd through 5^th grade children. Using a cluster analysis of peer-nominated popularity and likeability measures, we identified a seven-cluster solution, including three high-status clusters: Well-Liked, Popular, and Popular/Well-Liked. Popular children were perceived as using ridicule and having influence over misbehavior. Popular/Well-Liked children were perceived as using playful teasing and modeling and influencing over trend-setting and sports norms, at a degree similar to Popular children. However, Popular/Well-Liked children were not perceived as using ridicule or influencing over misbehavior; rather, they scored higher than all other status groups for prosocial assertion and academic motivation. Well-Liked children were perceived as using prosocial assertion and influencing over academic motivation at a higher degree than Average children but at a lower degree than Popular or Popular/Well-Liked children. Although the influence associated with likeability alone appeared relatively limited, likeability in conjunction with popularity seems to make a difference regarding influence behaviors and norms. A person-centered approach that takes into account multiple facets of social status is likely to enhance understanding of high-status children’s influence on their same-age peers.