A Note on Accepting the Null Hypothesis

Models are sometimes developed on the premise that there are no differences between two or more conditions regardless of experimental manipulation. This article argues that unless a very sensitive experiment (or series of experiments) was conducted, such conclusions are often premature. Design and statistical factors such as alpha level, variability, sample size, and treatment effect are all determinants of the sensitivity of the experiment. It is sometimes the case that an experiment produces differences between means and yet the null hypothesis is not rejected because of high variability within experimental conditions or because too few subjects were used. Unless the probability of detecting a difference between groups is known, it would seem unwise to conclude that no difference exists. Judgment on the model should be suspended. Examples are taken from the mass-spring and pulse-step models for voluntary movement control to illustrate the problem.     

Relationship of Workplace Factors and Job Involvement of Healthcare Employees with Quality of Patient Care in Teaching and Non-teaching Hospitals

The present study examined the effects of certain hospital workplace factors on job involvement among healthcare employees at the paramedical levels and quality of patient care in public hospitals in North India. The sample consisted of paramedical healthcare employees (N = 200), from a medical college affiliated teaching hospital and public hospitals (non-teaching) run by the railway services. Data were analyzed statistically to examine the hypothesized differences between the two types of hospitals. Results showed that employee perceptions of the workplace factors, namely, participation in decision making, innovative practices, perceived organizational support and role efficacy were significantly different in the teaching and non-teaching hospitals. Stepwise regression analysis of the data revealed that the factor ‘innovative practices’ was a positive predictor of job involvement in the non-teaching hospitals but a negative predictor of in job involvement in the teaching hospital. Job involvement significantly mediated the relationship between the perception of workplace factors and quality of patient care only in the non-teaching hospitals. The present study has important implications for initiating changes in the hospital system, particularly in public hospitals, where no systematic study has yet been conducted to determine the effects of workplace factors on job involvement of healthcare professionals and the quality of patient care in India.     

Examining the testing effect with open‐ and closed‐book tests

Two experiments examined the testing effect with open‐book tests, in which students view notes and textbooks while taking the test, and closed‐book tests, in which students take the test without viewing notes or textbooks. Subjects studied prose passages and then restudied or took an open‐ or closed‐book test. Taking either kind of test, with feedback, enhanced long‐term retention relative to conditions in which subjects restudied material or took a test without feedback. Open‐book testing led to better initial performance than closed‐book testing, but this benefit did not persist and both types of testing produced equivalent retention on a delayed test. Subjects predicted they would recall more after repeated studying, even though testing enhanced long‐term retention more than restudying. These experiments demonstrate that the testing effect occurs with both open‐ and closed‐book tests, and that subjects fail to predict the effectiveness of testing relative to studying in enhancing later recall. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mass media and health promotion in Indian villages

The role of mass media and other psychosocial factors in forming intentions to acquire health-related information and promotion of actual health behaviors was examined in a field study involving 720 male and female residents in 28 villages of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh. It was found that beliefs and attitudes toward health care, as well as some information-related needs, contribute in the formation of intentions. More specifically, the tendency to treat media as a source of stimulation and direction, learning, information, and tension-reduction together with positive attitudes explain 4% of variance in intention. Variance in actual health promotion behaviors and the use of media for health-related information is explained by the general impact of media together with other social factors such as social participation in community, anticipating changes in life situations, and taking initiative by acceptors. Attitude, intention, and behavior are related, but the link between them is mediated by other social factors. In order for mass media to be effective, reinforcement through interpersonal communication as well as change in environment are essential. Excessive reliance upon mass media without the coordinated support of formal and informal systems in the community may not be suitable for the promotion of health behaviors in rural India.     

Indian Health Care Professionals’ Attitude Towards Spiritual Healing and Its Role in Alleviating Stigma of Psychiatric Services

Persons with mental illnesses in India and rest of developing world continue to consult religious/spiritual (R/S) healers or traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) professionals prior to seeking psychiatric services that are devoid of spiritual components of care. We aim to understand TCAM and allopathic professionals’ perspectives on patients’ R/S needs within mental health services, cross-sectional study was conducted at five TCAM and two allopathic tertiary care hospitals in three different Indian states; 393 participants completed RSMPP, a self-administered, semi-structured survey questionnaire. Perspectives of TCAM and allopathic health professionals on role of spirituality in mental health care were compared. Substantial percentage, 43.7 % TCAM and 41.3 % allopathic, of participants believe that their patients approach R/S or TCAM practitioners for severe mental illness; 91.2 % of TCAM and 69.7 % of allopaths were satisfied with R/S healers (p = 0.0019). Furthermore, 91.1 % TCAM and 73.1 % allopaths (p = 0.000) believe that mental health stigma can be minimized by integrating with spiritual care services. Overall, 87 % of TCAM and 73 % of allopaths agreed to primary criterion variable: ‘spiritual healing is beneficial and complementary to psychiatric care.’ A quarter of allopaths (24.4 %) and 38 % of TCAM physicians reportedly cross-refer their grieving patients to religious/TCAM healer and psychiatrist/psychologist, respectively; on logistic regression, significant (p < 0.05) predictors were clinical interactions/references to r/s healers. Providing spiritual care within the setup of psychiatric institution will not only complement psychiatric care but also alleviate stigma against mental health services. Implications on developing spiritual care services like clinical chaplaincy are discussed.     

Ab initio study of Heusler alloys Co2XY (X = Cr,Mn, Fe; Y = Al,Ga) under high pressure

The structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of ferromagnetic Heusler alloys Co₂XY (X?=?Cr, Mn, Fe; Y?=?Al, Ga) have been investigated by means of the all-electron full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method within the generalized gradient approximation for the exchange and correlation potential. The main focus of this study is to elaborate the changes brought about in the electronic and the magnetic properties by applied pressure. The calculated total spin magnetic moments of all the compounds are found to be in good agreement with experiments. Out of these compounds, Co₂CrAl is found to be perfectly half-metallic (HM) and the other compounds are found to be nearly HM. Thus the HM to metal transition was observed at 75?GPa pressure for Co₂CrAl and the nearly half-metal to half-metal transition was observed at 40?GPa and 18?GPa for Co₂CrGa and Co₂MnAl, respectively, while no transition is observed in other compounds under investigation. It can be clearly seen that pressure affects the minority spin states rather than the majority states, leading to a slight reconstruction of the minority spin states with a shift in the Fermi level driving the above-mentioned transition.     

Effect of Reward Contingency on Intrinsic Motivation

The effects of type of task and type of reward contingency on intrinsic motivation for subsequent task performance were investigated. The sample consisted of 50 young Indian adults. The results showed a significantly greater amount of free choice time spent on a heuristic task rather than an algorithmic task. The verbal measures of intrinsic motivation yielded a significant effect of reward contingency with greater intrinsic motivation under performance-contingent reward, followed by task-contingent and no-reward conditions, respectively. The results support self-determination and competence processes as important mediators of intrinsic motivation.     

Preference‐based Learning of Ideal Solutions in TOPSIS‐like Decision Models

Combining established modelling techniques from multiple‐criteria decision aiding with recent algorithmic advances in the emerging field of preference learning, we propose a new method that can be seen as an adaptive version of TOPSIS, the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution decision model (or at least a simplified variant of this model). On the basis of exemplary preference information in the form of pairwise comparisons between alternatives, our method seeks to induce an ‘ideal solution’ that, in conjunction with a weight factor for each criterion, represents the preferences of the decision maker. To this end, we resort to probabilistic models of discrete choice and make use of maximum likelihood inference. First experimental results on suitable preference data suggest that our approach is not only intuitively appealing and interesting from an interpretation point of view but also competitive to state‐of‐the‐art preference learning methods in terms of prediction accuracy. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Test-enhanced learning in the classroom: long-term improvements from quizzing

Three experiments examined whether quizzing promotes learning and retention of material from a social studies course with sixth grade students from a suburban middle school. The material used in the experiments was the course material students were to learn and some of the dependent measures were the actual tests on which students received grades. In within-subject designs, students received three low-stakes multiple-choice quizzes in Experiments 1 and 2 and performance on quizzed items was compared to that on items that were presented twice (Experiment 2) or items that were not presented on the initial quizzes (Experiments 1 and 2). We found that students' performance on both chapter exams and semester exams improved following quizzing relative to either not being quizzed or relative to the twice-presented items. In Experiment 3, students were given one multiple-choice quiz in class and encouraged to quiz themselves outside of class using a Web-based system. The assessment in this experiment was a short answer test in which students had to produce answers, but we also used multiple-choice tests. Once again, we found that quizzing of material produced a positive effect on chapter and semester exams. These results show the robustness of retrieval practice via testing as a learning mechanism in a classroom setting using the subject matter of the course and (in most cases) the tests on which students received grades as the dependent measures. Our results add to a growing body of evidence that retrieval practice in the classroom can boost academic performance.     

Control of appetitive and aversive taste-reactivity responses by an auditory conditioned stimulus in a devaluation task: a FOS and behavioral analysis

Through associative learning, cues for biologically significant reinforcers such as food may gain access to mental representations of those reinforcers. Here, we used devaluation procedures, behavioral assessment of hedonic taste-reactivity responses, and measurement of immediate-early gene (IEG) expression to show that a cue for food engages behavior and brain activity related to sensory and hedonic processing of that food. Rats first received a tone paired with intraoral infusion of sucrose. Then, in the absence of the tone, the value of sucrose was reduced (Devalue group) by pairing sucrose with lithium chloride (LiCl), or maintained (Maintain group) by presenting sucrose and LiCl unpaired. Finally, taste-reactivity responses to the tone were assessed in the absence of sucrose. Devalue rats showed high levels of aversive responses and minimal appetitive responses, whereas Maintain rats exhibited substantial appetitive responding but little aversive responding. Control rats that had not received tone-sucrose pairings did not display either class of behaviors. Devalue rats showed greater FOS expression than Maintain rats in several brain regions implicated in devaluation task performance and the display of aversive responses, including the basolateral amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, gustatory cortex (GC), and the posterior accumbens shell (ACBs), whereas the opposite pattern was found in the anterior ACBs. Both Devalue and Maintain rats showed greater FOS expression than control rats in amygdala central nucleus, GC, and both subregions of ACBs. Thus, through associative learning, auditory cues for food gained access to neural processing in several brain regions importantly involved in the processing of taste memory information.