USING SELF-MANAGEMENT PROCEDURES TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTIVITY OF ADULTS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES IN A COMPETITIVE EMPLOYMENT SETTING

This study describes the use of self-management procedures, similar to those proposed by Lagomarcino, Hughes, and Rusch (1989), to improve the productivity of 2 women with mild mental retardation who worked in restaurants. Substantial improvements were observed as a function of treatment, and the procedures were deemed acceptable by the participants, their coworkers, and their supervisors.     

SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS APPROACHES TO MORALITY: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MUTUAL ANATHEMAS

Abstract Many people today believe that scientific and religious approaches to morality are mutually incompatible. Militant secularists claim scientific backing for their claim that the evolution of morality discredits religious conceptions of ethics. Some of their opponents respond with unhelpful apologetics based on fundamentalist views of revelation. This article attempts to provide an alternative option. It argues that public discussion has been excessively influenced by polemics generated by the new atheists. Religious writers have too often resorted to overly simplistic arguments rooted in literalist approaches to the Bible and the religious traditions. More historically conscious methods can avoid implausible claims about both religion and science.     

BUDDHISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGE: REPLY TO CRITICS

I provide a précis of The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized ( 2011 ), and then respond to three critics, Christian Coseru, Charles Goodman, and Bronwyn Finnigan.     

坚持心理学的科学实验——驳斥姚文元对心理学研究的诬蔑

“四人帮”同中外历史上一切反动派一样,是科学的死敌。他们惧怕科学,扼杀科学。我国的心理学科,正是由于“四人帮”的疯狂破坏,遭受了严重的摧残。阶级异己分子、反动文痞姚文元一再把黑手伸进心理学,采用他那惯用的乱扣帽子,乱打棍子的卑劣手法,对心理学进行大砍大杀。在文化大革命前夕,姚文元(化名葛铭人在光明日报发表黑文,)对我们关于儿童抽象概括能力发展的一个实验研究,斩头去尾,断章取义,带头发难,攻击心理学的研究“方向”和“方法”。诬陷心理学的研究是所谓     

THE HYBRIDITY OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE: A RESPONSE TO LEONARDO AMBASCIANO

This article responds to Leonardo Ambasciano's review of The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive Change, 1800–2000 by Kocku von Stuckrad. It criticizes a narrative that presents naturalism and science as the ultimate system of knowledge. Contesting this rhetoric, the article underscores the plurality and hybridity of knowledge systems, which is the main topic of the book under review.     

EYEBALL MEASUREMENT OF DEXTERITY: TESTS AS ALTERNATIVES TO INTERVIEWS

As industry's most popular selection device, the interview is too often misused to measure or predict numerous skills and abilities that can be measured or predicted better by other methods. The authors encountered such an abuse in a recent allegation of sex discrimination. This paper reports a study conducted for this litigation. Couched in a general lens model paradigm, the results demonstrate an inappropriate use of a selection technique to predict an ability that can be better measured by a test. This simple interview analog demonstrates the problems of replacing tests with inappropriate selection devices.     

USE OF SOUNDING OUT TO IMPROVE SPELLING IN YOUNG CHILDREN

We examined the effects of teaching 5 typically developing elementary students to sound out their spelling words while writing them using the cover‐copy‐compare (CCC) method to practice spelling. Each student's posttest performance following practice with sounding out was compared to that student's posttest performance following practice with no sounding out. For every student, posttest accuracy was higher following practice with sounding out, indicating that it is an effective and easily implemented strategy to improve spelling instruction.     

THE EVALUATION OF AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO MEASURING ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY

This research describes a new approach to the measurement and enhancement of organizational productivity entitled the Productivity Measurement and Enhancement System (ProMES). Various conceptual issues regarding productivity are briefly reviewed and the system is described. Research is reported in which productivity measures using this approach were developed and evaluated in five organizational units. The measures from the system were then used to give group-level feedback, followed by group goal setting and group incentives. Results indicated that unit personnel were cooperative in developing and using the system and that the system had good psychometric characteristics. Feedback increased productivity 50%, and feedback with the addition of goal setting and incentives increased productivity 75% and 76%, respectively. The approach to measuring productivity has several unique features. For example, it combines all the functions of a unit into a single index of productivity that reflects     

AN EVALUATION OF SELF‐MONITORING TO IMPROVE SWIMMING PERFORMANCE

This study evaluated the effects of self‐monitoring by swimmers to improve their performance and assessed the effects of reactivity to observer presence on their performance. Seven public high school swim team members self‐monitored their behavior on dry erase boards to increase the number of assigned laps completed at practice. Reactivity to observer presence was assessed as a confederate, recorded the number of laps completed during observer absent conditions. The percentage of assigned laps completed increased during the self‐monitoring phases. The self‐monitoring and feedback phase further increased the percentage of assigned laps completed and increased the participants' mean level of reporting accuracy. The effects from the reactivity assessment were mixed across participants. Further research is needed to examine reactivity effects in sport settings. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

REVISING THE SES: A COLLABORATIVE PROCESS TO IMPROVE ASSESSMENT OF SEXUAL AGGRESSION AND VICTIMIZATION

The Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) assesses victimization and perpetration of unwanted sexual experiences (e.g., Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987 ). Revised versions of the SES that resulted from the work of the SES Collaboration are now available. This article reviews weaknesses of the SES that were identified, strengths that were preserved, and methodological considerations in the measurement of unwanted sexual experiences that informed the revisions. The primary changes include: more behavioral specificity; conversion to gender neutrality; full crossing of unwanted acts and coercive tactics; and revised and updated wording for assessing consent, alcohol-related incidents, unwanted acts, and coercive tactics. For illustration, the full text of the revised victimization version and its scoring rules are provided. The article concludes with suggestions for future research. These suggestions aim to involve researchers in a coordinated agenda to develop data that clarify methodological questions and contribute to continued improvement in assessing sexual victimization and perpetration.     

A PERFORMANCE-BASED LOTTERY TO IMPROVE RESIDENTIAL CARE AND TRAINING BY INSTITUTIONAL STAFF

Two experiments were conducted on four units of a residential facility for the multiply-handicapped retarded in an attempt to improve daily care and training services. Experiment I compared the effects of two procedures in maintaining the work performance of attendants, using an A-B design on two units. One procedure consisted of implementing specific staff-resident assignments, the other consisted of allowing attendants who had met performance criteria to be eligible for a weekly lottery in which they could win the opportunity to rearrange their days off for the following week. Results showed that the lottery was a more effective procedure as measured by the per cent of time attendants engaged in predefined target behaviors, and by their frequency of task completion in several areas of resident care. Experiment II replicated and extended these results to the area of work quality on two additional units, using a multiple-baseline design. The performance lottery was found to be an effective economical procedure that could be implemented by supervisory staff on a large scale.     

MODIFICATION OF SHUTTLE BOX TO IMPROVE RATE OF AVOIDANCE LEARNING IN RATS

W allgren , H. & S avolainen , S. Modification of shuttle-box to improve rate of avoidance learning in rats. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1962, 3 , 78–80.—Acquisition by rats of a conditioned avoidance response seems to be retarded in an ordinary shuttle-box by the necessity to re-enter the compartment where shocks have previously been received. To avoid this, a four-compartment box was introduced in which the animals can proceed in one direction. Rats were given either continuous trials until nine avoidance responses were made during 10 consecutive trials, or 30 trials per day until 27 correct responses were made during one session. With both methods of training, the rate of learning was approximately 40 per cent more rapid in the four-compartment box than in the ordinary shuttle-box.     

THE MEASUREMENT OF TRUST AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO SELF-DISCLOSURE

This study examined the relationship of trust to self-disclosure. A measure of individualized trust was developed and used in conjunction with a multidimensional measure of disclosure to reassess the relationship between the two. A modest, linear relationship between individualized trust and various dimensions of self-disclosure was discovered. Moreover, a higher level of trust (as opposed to lesser trust as well as distrust) was found to be associated with more consciously intended disclosure and a greater amount of disclosure.     

TEST VALIDATION FOR SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING: TWO DEMONSTRATIONS OF AN APPROACH TO STUDYING PREDICTOR-CRITERION LINKAGES

This paper argues that a construct-oriented approach to test validation is likely to enhance scientific understanding of our predictor measures, performance criteria, and links between them. In particular, examining relationships between relatively homogeneous predictors and criteria tapping specific performance areas operationalizes earlier conceptual statements made by Guion and Dunnette about test validation for scientific understanding. Two demonstrations are offered to show how measures of predictor constructs have predictably different patterns of correlations with different criteria. In a study of Navy recruiters ( N = 267), individual personality scales had significantly different relationships with three different rating criteria; in a second study, with Army enlisted soldiers ( N = 8, 642), cognitive ability and personality construct measures also showed predictable patterns of correlations, with rating criteria measuring three different performance areas. The paper discusses scientific and practical implications of this construct-oriented approach to test validation.     

LOGIC-BASED MEASUREMENT OF VERBAL REASONING: A KEY TO INCREASED VALIDITY AND ECONOMY

The purpose of this paper is to define logic-based measurement as a method of measurement in which all measures (test items) are constructed according to the applicable inferential formulae of logic. Such a method of test construction brings into verbal reasoning tests the inferential objectivity of numerical reasoning tests. The availability of such a technology has powerful implications in personnel selection regarding real-life prediction of inferential performance, the legal defensibility of personnel selection tests, the design of economical, inferentially nonredundant tests, and the design of test taxonomies in which basic inferential processes can be thoroughly sampled. These implications are discussed in this paper. Also the paper includes a discussion of the linkage of logic-based measurement with other recently developed technologies such as validity generalization and computer-tailored testing.     

THE USE OF SELF-MODELING TO IMPROVE THE SWIMMING PERFORMANCE OF SPINA BIFIDA CHILDREN

The use of edited videotape replay (which showed only “positive” behaviors) to improve the water skills of three spina bifida children, aged 5 to 10 years was examined. A multiple baseline across subjects design was used, and behavioral changes were observed to occur in close association with intervention. One child was given successive reapplications of videotaped self-modeling with continuing improvements. It appears that a useful practical technique has been developed.