Assessing the use of multiple sources in student essays

The present study explored different approaches for automatically scoring student essays that were written on the basis of multiple texts. Specifically, these approaches were developed to classify whether or not important elements of the texts were present in the essays. The first was a simple pattern-matching approach called "multi-word" that allowed for flexible matching of words and phrases in the sentences. The second technique was latent semantic analysis (LSA), which was used to compare student sentences to original source sentences using its high-dimensional vector-based representation. Finally, the third was a machine-learning technique, support vector machines, which learned a classification scheme from the corpus. The results of the study suggested that the LSA-based system was superior for detecting the presence of explicit content from the texts, but the multi-word pattern-matching approach was better for detecting inferences outside or across texts. These results suggest that the best approach for analyzing essays of this nature should draw upon multiple natural language processing approaches.     

Book review of Applied Behavior Analysis Advanced Guidebook: A Manual for Professional Practice (2nd edition)

The second edition of Applied Behavior Analysis Advanced Guidebook: A Manual for Professional Practice (Luiselli, 2023) covers 17 chapters on topics that are relevant to applied behavior analysis practitioners. In this review, we discuss the purpose and intended audience of the Guidebook, briefly summarize the contents of the Guidebook, and critically evaluate the contents with respect to breadth and depth, audience fit, organization, and cohesion. In addition, we discuss emerging areas that are highlighted in the Guidebook (i.e., technology and telehealth, diversity and multiculturism, and practice-oriented research).     

The Relationship between Multiplicative Classification and Inductive Reasoning

The relation between multiplicative classification and inductive reasoning was investigated with 103 nine-year-old children. By means of regression analysis a significant association was found. The variance accounted for in the Inhelder-Piaget test of multiplicative classification by performance on the Raven measure, was 34 percent. It was expected that the operational component of the Raven test would be restricted to conceptual items. The data did not support this expectation. It was concluded, for the present sample, that there is an overlap between these two domains of mental operations.     

Ethical Issues in Cancer Genetics: 1) Whose Information Is It?

This article presents and discusses four clinical cases that exemplify the complexity of ethical dilemmas concerning the provider's obligation to disclose or withhold genetic information from patients. Case 1: What is the responsibility of the cancer genetics provider to ensure that a positive test results is shared with distant relatives? Case 2: To ensure that results go to at-risk relatives, do we have the right to ignore the wishes of the designated next-of-kin? Case 3: Do we have the right to reveal a familial BRCA1 mutation to a patient's relative, who is at 50% risk? Case 4: Do we have an obligation to reveal that a patient is not a blood relative and therefore, not at risk to have inherited a familial mutation? These cases form the basis for discussing the provider's dual obligations to keeping patient confidentiality and informing patients and families about risk (i.e. duty to warn). We also provide a summary of consensus points and additional discussion questions for each case.     

Goal-directedness and personal identity as correlates of life outcomes

Although much research has been conducted on goal setting, researchers have not examined goal-directedness or propensity to set goals as a stable human characteristic in adults. In this study, a survey was developed and distributed to 104 adult participants to assess their goal-directedness, personal identity, and various life outcomes. A theoretical model was developed and tested using structural equation modeling that proposed that both goal-directedness and personal identity should positivcly influence important life outcomes. Analysis showed that goal-directedness and personal identity are positively related to personal well-being, salary, and marital satisfaction. Further, personal identity was positively related to job satisfaction but, contrary to related research, goal-directedness did not predict job satisfaction.     

Use of the MMPI-2 in American Indians: II. Empirical correlates

R. W. Robin, R. L. Greene, B. Albaugh, A. Caldwell, and D. Goldman (2003) reported that members of 2 American Indian tribal groups had statistically significant higher T scores on several MMPI-2 clinical, content, and supplementary scales than did the MMPI-2 normative group. The present study investigated the empirical correlates of the MMPI-2 scales in these American Indian tribal members. There were a large number of significant correlates reflecting antisocial symptoms with Scales 4 (Psychopathic Deviate), 9 (Hypomania), Anger, and Antisocial Practices. There were even a larger number of significant correlates reflecting generalized distress and negative affect with Scales 7 (Psychosthenia), 8 (Schizophrenia), Anxiety, Obsessions, Depression, and Welsh Anxiety. The rationally derived MMPI-2 content scales generally had larger correlations with these constructs than the clinical scales. Thus, the differences reported by R. W. Robin et al. (2003), appear to reflect behaviors and symptoms that American Indians participants were experiencing rather than test bias.     

Use of latent semantic analysis for predicting psychological phenomena: Two issues and proposed solutions

Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is a computational model of human knowledge representation that approximates semantic relatedness judgments. Two issues are discussed that researchers must attend to when evaluating the utility of LSA for predicting psychological phenomena. First, the role of semantic relatedness in the psychological process of interest must be understood. LSA indices of similarity should then be derived from this theoretical understanding. Second, the knowledge base (semantic space) from which similarity indices are generated must contain “knowledge” that is appropriate to the task at hand. Proposed solutions are illustrated with data from an experiment in which LSA-based indices were generated from theoretical analysis of the processes involved in understanding two conflicting accounts of a historical event. These indices predict the complexity of subsequent student reasoning about the event, as well as hand-coded predictions generated from think-aloud protocols collected when students were reading the accounts of the event.     

To be or not to be a real object: Monitoring the therapeutic relationship

Psychoanalytic theorists have lately come to acknowledge what practicing clinicians have long recognized: the importance of flexibility in psychotherapeutic technique. Adjusting the transference-countertransference expectations to the developmental level of each particular patient has become increasingly necessary as psychodynamic therapists work in depth with a wider range of difficult patients.