Construct Overlap Between Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction: A Function of Semantic Equivalence?

The evidence for employee engagement as a distinct construct, separate from related work attitudes such as job satisfaction, has been contradictory. Despite a growing inventory of research, current statistical techniques fall short in providing additional answers beyond those previously documented through discriminant and incremental validity, among others. Understanding the semantic similarity between scales however could uncover the potential bounds of current evidence and highlight areas of further exploration. This study examined the semantic similarity between three measures of employee engagement frequently found in the research literature and a commonly used measure of job satisfaction. Examining a relatively new indicator of validity, manifest validity, semantic relatedness between items from employee engagement and job satisfaction instruments was assessed using latent semantic analysis. Semantic similarity between employee engagement and job satisfaction items predicted moderate to high amounts of variance (R ² = 25–69 %) in corresponding correlations of survey responses. Findings suggest that high correlations between certain employee engagement measures and job satisfaction scores may be a function of semantic equivalence rather than individual perceptions of separate theoretical constructs.     

Mental health disparities impacting Christian Korean Americans: a qualitative examination of pastors’ perspectives

Mental health disparities impacting Korean Americans are multifaceted. Although encouraging developments have been made in the knowledge of mental health prevalence and professional help-seeking behaviours of Asian Americans, Korean Americans continue to experience many challenges and unique needs that require more ethnic- and culture-specific knowledge. Given the prominent role that religion, particularly Christianity, plays in the Korean American context, we conducted exploratory interviews with 10 Korean American pastors regarding their perspectives on mental health issues impacting the Korean American community. Using consensual qualitative research, we found four salient domains: (a) Barriers to seeking mental health services, (b) Challenges that pastors experience, (c) Pastor’s assessment of church’s current climate in approaches to mental health issues, and (d) What is needed. Implications for research and practice in addressing mental health disparities are discussed.     

Socio-Cultural Determinants of Physical Activity among Latin American Immigrant Women in Alberta,Canada

Acculturation has been associated with decreased physical activity among immigrants. This study assessed the process of changing physical activity patterns within the context of Latin American immigrant women’s migration experiences to Canada. Using the ecological model of health promotion, we applied a mixed methods research design. Thirty-six Latin American immigrant women, 18 recent (<10 years in Canada) and 18 non-recent (>10 years in Canada), participated. Six focus groups and 14 in-depth individual interviews were conducted. The Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire was administered. Overall, 86 % of the participants reported gaining weight since coming to Canada. Participants reported becoming more sedentary upon arriving in Canada. Only 27.3 % of recent and 41.7 % of non-recent immigrant women were considered sufficiently physically active. Lack of time, resources, social support, and migration stress were identified as key barriers to physical activity. Migration stress associated with social integration barriers strongly influence physical activity among Latin American immigrant women.     

The Role of Partisan Sources and Audiences' Involvement in Bias Perceptions of Controversial News

Based on the hostile media effect (HME), this 2 (audiences' opinion) × 2 (partisan source) × 2 (news valence) factorial experiment (N = 229) investigated the effects of partisan sources and audiences' different types of involvement on bias perceptions of slanted news coverage regarding a controversial issue. The results show that participants rated a news article, regardless of its valence (congruent vs. incongruent), as less biased when it was attributed to a partisan source that was consistent with their own position than when it came from a partisan source that was inconsistent with their position. Moderating effects of value-relevant involvement on the source effects were found. The effects of partisan sources on bias perceptions were only significant among those with moderate or high levels of value-relevant involvement. The implications of the source effects and the role of value-relevant involvement as a moderator of such effects were discussed.     

Parenting Self-Efficacy and Parental Involvement: Mediators or Moderators Between Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Academic Competence in Japan and Korea?

We examined the causes of a growing achievement gap associated with socioeconomic status (SES) in Korea and Japan, testing whether parenting self-efficacy (PSE) and parental involvement (PI) mediated or moderated the association of SES to children’s school-related competence (SRC). Three hundred and seventy-two Korean and 309 Japanese mothers of first- and second-grade children completed a parenting survey. Japanese mothers’ education and PSE were directly associated with SRC. PSE moderated the association of education to SRC, with higher PSE of college-educated mothers positively associated with SRC. In the Korean sample, household income was associated with SRC directly as well as indirectly through PSE.     

Applying Evidence-Centered Design for the Development of Game-Based Assessments in Physics Playground

Game-based assessment (GBA) is a specific use of educational games that employs game activities to elicit evidence for educationally valuable skills and knowledge. While this approach can provide individualized and diagnostic information about students, the design and development of assessment mechanics for a GBA is a nontrivial task. In this article, we describe the 10-step procedure that the design team of Physics Playground (formerly known as Newton's Playground) has established by adapting evidence-centered design to address unique challenges of GBA. The scaling method used for Physics Playground was Bayesian networks; thus this article describes specific actions taken for the iterative process of constructing and revising Bayesian networks in the context of the game Physics Playground.     

The influence of the number of relevant causes on the processing of covariation information in causal reasoning

Research on causal reasoning has focused on the influence of covariation between candidate causes and effects on causal judgments. We suggest that the type of covariation information to which people attend is affected by the task being performed. For this, we manipulated the test questions for the evaluation of contingency information and observed its influence on both contingency learning and subsequent causal selections. When people select one cause related to an effect, they focus on conditional contingencies assuming the absence of alternative causes. When people select two causes related to an effect, they focus on conditional contingencies assuming the presence of alternative causes. We demonstrated this use of contingency information in four experiments.     

Profiles of Rater Dis/Agreement within Universal Screening in Predicting Distal Outcomes

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - The success of a comprehensive and integrated school mental health system is dependent on data to inform decision-making. Universal screening...     

A quantitative analysis of accuracy,reliability and bias in judgements of functional analyses

Functional analysis can be considered a diagnostic assessment that behavior analysts use to determine behavioral function. Such a diagnosis ultimately requires a yes or no decision (i.e., a variable maintains a behavior, or it does not) that is determined by both subjective (clinical judgement) and objective (data) variables. Accurate and reliable identification of function is essential for successful treatment, yet behavior analysts' interpretation of data relies on their ability to detect visual differences in graphed data. Some research indicates that behavior analysts have questionable reliability in their visual analysis. To further examine the reliability, accuracy, and bias in visual analysis of functional analysis graphs, we simulated functional analysis results and surveyed 121 BCBA-Ds experienced in visual analysis. We then examined reliability of responses and used a signal detection theory approach to analyze accuracy and bias. Findings suggest that reliability and accuracy of judgements are questionable, and exploration of decision aids is warranted.     

The Racialization of International Trade

Despite their less vulnerable economic status, white individuals' attitudes toward overseas trade in the United States may have become more protectionist than those of economically disadvantaged minorities. We present results from five different studies examining two different ways in which trade may have become racialized. First, we examine the extent to which a person's racial identity is associated with levels of trade support. Second, we examine whether the predominant racial identity of a potential trading-partner country influences people's willingness to trade with that country. Using various surveys and multiple survey experiments conducted over the past 12 years, we find that white individuals have become less supportive of trade than minorities and that whites are more likely than minorities to favor trade with highly similar countries. We suggest that minority support for trade is due to four well-documented differences in the psychological predispositions of whites and minorities in the United States. Minorities have lower levels of racial prejudice, are lower in social dominance, and express less nationalism than whites. At the same time, there is evidence of rising ingroup racial consciousness among whites. Each of these characteristics has been independently linked to trade support in a direction encouraging greater support for trade among minorities. As the United States grows ever closer to becoming a “majority minority” nation, the racialization of trade attitudes may stimulate shifts in the likely future of America's trade relationships.