THE FOREIGN VISIT SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING ITS USEFULNESS

Les visites à L'étranger: quelques propositions pour augmenter leur utilité. — L'auteur suggère quelques idées pout augmenter L'utilité pour les psychologues des visites à L'étranger; il propose plus spécialement, que les institutions préparent des textes qui donnent à L'avance à ceux qui envisagent de telles visites, des informations détaillées sur L'espace disponible, L'équipement statistique, L'atelier et les services généraux des laboratoires ainsi que sur les possibilités d'obtenir des sujets, sur les bibliothèques, etc… Il note qu'il est important que le visiteur puisse s'orienter le plus tôt possible, que L'on publie des informations sur la présence des visiteurs et souligne enfin la nécessité d'étudier empiriquement les effets qu'ont les visites à L'étranger sur les échanges internationaux qui s'ensuivent pour les participants.     

Beyond logic – entering the realm of mystery: hermeneutic phenomenology as a tool for reflecting on children’s spirituality

This paper suggests hermeneutic phenomenology as a theoretical framework for reflecting, interpreting and gaining insight into children’s spirituality. It describes an episode that took place in a Year 5 classroom involving a 10‐year‐old child and his response to an Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime story. The possibilities this observed incident opens for hermeneutic phenomenology are then explored using van Manen’s notion of lifeworld existentials as guides to reflection upon the life expression of this child. The four lifeworld existentials are lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality) and lived human relation (relationality). In using these as a means by which to interpret the life expression of this child, it is argued that some insights into his or her spirituality can be gleaned.     

An informal online learning community for student mental health at university: a preliminary investigation

As a potential solution to increasing demands on mental health services at universities, this project seeks to develop an informal online learning community for mental health support and education. Students' use of the Internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), especially to access health information, provides a supporting rationale for this project. The design for this study is grounded in the pedagogical principles of informal learning and the practices for building successful online communities. The student online mental health community has been implemented at the authors' university (University of Dublin, Trinity College) for one academic term and the initial analysis of its usage is positive. Features that are being positively evaluated are the role of the reader participant, disinhibition that arises from anonymity, online provision acting as a gateway to further support, and online provision reaching an audience who ordinarily do not use face-to-face services. At the same time, difficulties specific to this type of community have surfaced, including technical issues, implications of anonymity and user safety.     

An Early Buddhist Text on Logic: Fang Bian Xin Lun

The Fang Bian Xin Lun is a text on Buddhist logic which is thought to be the earliest one still to be extant. It appears in Chinese only (T1632). The great Italian indologist Giuseppe Tucci, believing that the text was originally a Sanskrit text, translated it into Sanskrit and gave it the title Upāyahṛdaya. The paper provides the historical background of the development of logic in Classical India up to the time of this text, summarizes its content and translates its first section.

Qualitative research and its place in psychological science

In discussing the place of diverse qualitative research within psychological science, the authors highlight the potential permeability of the quantitative-qualitative boundary and identify different ways of increasing communication between researchers specializing in different methods. Explicating diversity within qualitative research is facilitated, initially, through documenting the range of qualitative data collection and analytic methods available. The authors then consider the notion of paradigmatic frame and review debates on the current and future positioning of qualitative research within psychological science. In so doing, the authors argue that the different ways in which the concept of paradigm can be interpreted allow them to challenge the idea that diverse research paradigms are prima facie incommensurate. Further, reviewing the ways in which proponents of qualitative research are seeking to reconfigure the links between paradigms helps the authors to envisage how communication between research communities can be enhanced. This critical review allows the authors to systematize possible configurations for research practice in psychology on a continuum of paradigm integration and to specify associated criteria for judging intermethod coherence.     

A context-free language for binary multinomial processing tree models

This paper provides a new formalization for the class of binary multinomial processing tree (BMPT) models, and theorems for the class are developed using the formalism. MPT models are a popular class of information processing models for categorical data in specific cognitive paradigms. They have a recursive structure that is productively described with the tools of formal language and computation theory. We provide an axiomatization that characterizes BMPT models as strings in a context-free language, and then we add model-theoretic axioms and definitions to interpret the strings as parameterized probabilistic models for categorical data. The language for BMPT models is related to the Full Binary Tree language, a well-studied context-free language. Once BMPT models are viewed from the perspective of the Full Binary Tree language, a number of theoretical and computational results can be developed. In particular, we have a number of results concerning the enumerations of BMPT models as well as the identifiability of subclasses of these models.     

The role of implicit and explicit components of exerciser self-schema in the prediction of exercise behaviour

ObjectivesThis study investigated implicit and explicit components of exerciser self-schema and their role in the prediction of exercise behaviour. In addition, the effect of implicit and explicit exerciser self-schema on intention to exercise was examined. Moderation and mediation effects involving exerciser self-schema, in both its implicit and explicit forms, were investigated.MethodMembers of fitness centres and other regular exercisers (N = 98, n_males = 37, n_females = 65) completed a written questionnaire to measure explicit exerciser self-schema and exercise intentions. An exercise Implicit Association Test (IAT) was also administered to measure implicit exerciser self-schema. Actual exercise occurrence was measured one week and two weeks following the initial testing phase.ResultsCorrelations indicated that implicit and explicit components of exerciser self-schema were related but distinct constructs. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that high levels of both implicit and explicit exerciser self-schema improved absolute levels of exercise behaviour. Regression analyses examining the possibility that self-schema moderated the intention–behaviour relationship were not significant for implicit or explicit forms of self-schema. Forced entry regression analyses provided evidence for explicit exerciser self-schema being mediated by intention in its relationship with behaviour.ConclusionsIt is beneficial to consider both implicit and explicit exerciser self-schema when attempting to understand and predict exercise behaviour. Both implicit and explicit exercise self-schema have a direct effect on behaviour, although explicit self-schema also indirectly influences behaviour via intention to exercise.     

Randomization tests and the unequal-<Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis>/unequal-variance problem

When both the variance and the N are unequal in a two-group design, the probability of a Type I error shifts from the nominal 5% error rate. The probability is too liberal when the small cell has the larger variance and too conservative when the large cell has the larger variance. We present an algorithm to circumvent the problem when the smaller group has the larger variance and show, by simulation, that the algorithm brings the error rate back to the nominal value without sacrificing the ability to detect true effects.