The Magnitude and Extent of Cheating and Response Distortion Effects on Unproctored Internet‐Based Tests of Cognitive Ability and Personality

The use of unproctored internet‐based testing (UIT) for employee selection is quite widespread. Although this mode of testing has advantages over onsite testing, researchers and practitioners continue to be concerned about potential malfeasance (e.g., cheating and response distortion) under high‐stakes conditions. Therefore, the primary objective of the present study was to investigate the magnitude and extent of high‐ and low‐stakes retest effects on the scores of a UIT speeded cognitive ability test and two UIT personality measures. These data permitted inferences about the magnitude and extent of malfeasant responding. The study objectives were accomplished by implementing two within‐subjects design studies ( Study 1 N=296; Study 2 N=318) in which test takers first completed the tests as job applicants (high‐stakes) or incumbents (low‐stakes) then as research participants (low‐stakes). For the speeded cognitive ability measure, the pattern of test score differences was more consonant with a psychometric practice effect than a malfeasance explanation. This result is likely due to the speeded nature of the test. And for the UIT personality measures, the pattern of higher high‐stakes scores compared with lower low‐stakes scores is similar to those reported for proctored tests in the extant literature. Thus, our results indicate that the use of a UIT administration does not uniquely threaten personality measures in terms of elevated scores under high‐stakes testing that are higher than those observed for proctored tests in the extant literature.     

Proceedings of the American Psychological Association for the legislative year 2007: minutes of the annual meeting of the Council of Representatives and minutes of the meetings of the Board of Directors

Provides the minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Council of Representatives February 16-18, 2007, Washington, DC, and August 9 and 13, 2007, San Francisco, CA, and minutes of the February, June, August, and December 2007 meetings of the Board of Directors. These minutes are the official record of the actions of the American Psychological Association taken during the year by both the Board of Directors (the Board) and the Council of Representatives (Council). The main topical headings are I. Minutes of Meetings; II. Elections, Awards, Membership, and Human Resources; III. Ethics; IV. Board of Directors; V. Divisions and State, Provincial, and Territorial Psychological Associations; VI. Organization of the APA; VII. Publications and Communications; VIII. Convention Affairs; IX. Educational Affairs; X. Professional Affairs; XI. Scientific Affairs; XII. Public Interest; XIII. Ethnic Minority Affairs; XIV. International Affairs; XV. Central Office; and XVI. Financial Affairs.     

The importance of distinguishing between constructs and methods when comparing predictors in personnel selection research and practice

The authors highlight the importance and discuss the criticality of distinguishing between constructs and methods when comparing predictors. They note that comparisons of constructs and methods in comparative evaluations of predictors result in outcomes that are theoretically to conceptually uninterpretable and thus potentially misleading. The theoretical and practical implications of the distinction between predictor constructs and predictor methods are discussed, with three important streams of personnel psychology research being used to frame this discussion. Researchers, editors, reviewers, educators, and consumers of research are urged to carefully consider the extent to which the construct-method distinction is made and maintained in their own research and that of others, especially when predictors are being compared. It is hoped that this discussion will reorient researchers and practitioners toward a more construct-oriented approach that is aligned with a scientific emphasis in personnel selection research and practice.     

From Vygotsky to Vygotskian psychology: introduction to the history of the Kharkov School

Around the end of the 1920s, Vygotsky introduced his integrative framework for psycho-logical research to the Soviet Union. This framework was not abandoned and forgotten until its rediscovery in Russia and America in the 1950s, as some claim. In fact, even after his untimely death in 1934, Vygotsky remained the spiritual leader of a group of his for-mer students and collaborators, who became known as the Kharkov School. This paper reconstructs the early intellectual history of Vygotskian psychology, as it emerged, around the time of Vygotsky's death, in the research program of the Kharkov School.     

Psychosocial risk factors at work as predictors of mobbing

This work analyses the way in which various psychosocial risk indicators may predict mobbing. A sample of 638 workers, 168 men and 470 women, from the fruit-and-vegetable sector was evaluated. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to all employees who were present on the evaluation days in the companies comprising the study. After analysing the data obtained with the mobbing questionnaire NAQ-RE (Sáez, García-Izquierdo, and Llor, 2003) and with the psychosocial risk factors evaluation method of the INSHT (Martín and Pérez, 1997), using canonical regression, we found that several psychosocial factors such as role definition, mental workload, interest in the workers, and supervision / participation predict two types of mobbing: personal mobbing and work-performance-related mobbing.     

Similarity,distance, and categorization: A discussion of Smith’s (2006) warning about “colliding parameters”

The idea that categorization decisions rely on subjective impressions of similarities between stimuli has been prevalent in much of the literature over the past 30 years and has led to the development of a large number of models that apply some kind of decision rule to similarity measures. A recent article by Smith (2006) has argued that thesesimilarity—choice models of categorization have a substantial design flaw, in which the similarity and the choice components effectively cancel one another out. As a consequence of this cancellation, it is claimed, the relationship between distance and category membership probabilities is linear in these models. In this article, I discuss these claims and show mathematically that in those cases in which it is sensible to discuss the relationship between category distance and category membership at all, the function relating the two is approximately logistic. Empirical data are used to show that a logistic function can be observed in appropriate contexts.     

On the interaction between exemplar-based concepts and a response scaling process

An analysis of the “response scaling” parameter in the Generalized Context Model is presented. In light of the existing debate over the behavior of the model when this parameter is included, three different interpretations are discussed, in order to illustrate the effect of the parameter at the decision level, the category similarity level, and the representational structure level.     

Sacred cinema: exploring Christian sensibilities within popular Hollywood films

Numerous Christian sensibilities have permeated the popular cinema, but they are frequently undetected, unappreciated or unwanted by those fearful of the cinema’s potentially corrupting effect. Yet, a postmodern religious education requires the embracement of this communication media, not its rejection, employing discernment not denial. A first step in this corrective process is to raise the profession’s consciousness about the possibilities of sacred cinema, which is the primary purpose of this paper. Consequently, using textually based, humanist film criticism as the analytical lens, the critical film and religion literature was reviewed, the popular Hollywood cinema scanned and the following areas explicated herein, namely: (a) holy plotlines, (b) divine symbolism, and (c) sacred subtexts—the Christ‐figure. All three categories were supplied with copious inter‐genre exemplars to demonstrate their diversity and richness. It was concluded that the sacred cinema is a legitimate pop culture phenomenon and a living genre that has immense pedagogic utility for religious education aimed squarely at the proverbial children‐of‐the‐media. As such, it should be proactively employed as a postmodern act of applied cinema that simultaneously values the audiovisual, education and enjoyment. Further research into this emerging and exciting interdisciplinary field was recommended.     

Dynamics of Flow: A Nonlinear Perspective

The aims of this study are to consider the experience of flow from a nonlinear dynamics perspective. The processes and temporal nature of intrinsic motivation and flow, would suggest that flow experiences fluctuate over time in a dynamical fashion. Thus it can be argued that the potential for chaos is strong. The sample was composed of 20 employees (both full and part time) recruited from a number of different organizations and work backgrounds. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used for data collection. Once obtained the temporal series, they were subjected to various analyses proper to the complexity theory (Visual Recurrence Analysis and Surrogate Data Analysis). Results showed that in 80% of the cases, flow presented a chaotic dynamic, in that, flow experiences delineated a complex dynamic whose patterns of change were not easy to predict. Implications of the study, its limitations and future research are discussed.