Conflicts between on-task and off-task behaviors in the classroom: the influences of parental monitoring, peer value orientations, students’ goals, and their value orientations

Students in class are sometimes torn between following the lesson and engaging in off-task behavior. In this paper, instead of classifying it as a form of deviant behavior, off-task behavior is reconstructed as a manifestation of students multiple motivations in the classroom. The study examines whether parental monitoring, peer value orientations, students’ personal goals, and their value orientations determine students’ motivational interference in these conflict situations. Participants were 348 students (mean age 15.24) from 16 classes of four high schools. A self-report questionnaire was used that combined a qualitative assessment of personal goals with a quantitative approach. Qualitative answers were coded and data was analyzed in a series of hierarchical linear models. As hypothesized, relationships between motivational interference and parental monitoring, peer achievement and well-being value orientations, students’ school- and leisure-related goals, as well as students’ achievement and well-being value orientations were demonstrated. Students’ own value orientations emerged to be the strongest predictor of motivational interference and mediated between parental monitoring and motivational interference. The results suggest that teachers should help students to reconcile their multiple values and goals in the classroom.     

Spatial cognition and perseveration by horses, donkeys and mules in a simple A-not-B detour task

We investigated perseveration and detour behaviour in 36 equids (Equus caballus, E. asinus, E. caballus × E. asinus) and compared these data to those of a previous study on domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). The animals were required to make a detour through a gap at one end of a straight barrier in order to reach a visible target. After one, two, three or four repeats (A trials), the gap was moved to the opposite end of the barrier (B trials). We recorded initial deviations from the correct solution path and the latency to crossing the barrier. In the A trials, mules crossed the barrier significantly faster than their parental species, the horses and donkeys. In the B trials, following the change of gap location, all species showed a reduction in performance. Both dogs and horses exhibited significant spatial perseveration, going initially to the previous gap location. Donkeys and mules, however, performed at chance level. Our results suggest that hybrid vigour in mules extends to spatial abilities.     

How equivalent are the action execution,imagery, and observation of intransitive movements? Revisiting the concept of somatotopy during action simulation

Jeannerod (2001) hypothesized that action execution, imagery, and observation are functionally equivalent. This led to the major prediction that these motor states are based on the same action-specific and even effector-specific motor representations. The present study examined whether hand and foot movements are represented in a somatotopic manner during action execution, imagery, and action observation.     

Weibull analysis of the biaxial fracture strength of a cast p-type LAST-T thermoelectric material

This is the first study applying Weibull statistics to the strength distribution of a thermoelectric (TE) material and to determine the fracture strength of a member of the LAST-T (lead–antimony–silver–tellurium–tin) family of high-temperature TE compounds. The p-type TE material Ag_0.9Pb₉Sn₉Sb_0.6Te₂₀ was cast from the melt and specimens cut from the resulting ingot were fractured in a ball-on-ring biaxial fracture test. The Weibull parameters (characteristic strength and Weibull modulus) were obtained from the fracture data. Implications of the Weibull analysis on the fabrication of TE devices are discussed.     

Universal Popular Responses to Inkblots in Five Cultures: Denmark,Germany, Hong Kong,Mexico and United States

Klopfer and Kelly in 1942 predicted that “a sufficient number of frequency counts” would indicate universality of response to certain inkblots by groups, e.g. cultural. Group administration and the development of a computer based scoring program has enabled the authors to examine adequate frequencies across five cultures (Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, United States) and validate the prediction. Using Holtzman's criterion for Popular, universality was found in 23 inkblots and near-universality in 10 additional. The core concept person accounted for the populars in 15 instances; other concepts were animal, fowl, face or mask, person-riding-animal, landscape, butterfly or moth, seahorse, fish, and rain or storm. Across all five cultures there was much more commonality than differences in perception of inkblots.     

Wittgenstein on the Infinity of Primes

It is controversial whether Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics is of critical importance for mathematical proofs, or is only concerned with the adequate philosophical interpretation of mathematics. Wittgenstein's remarks on the infinity of prime numbers provide a helpful example which will be used to clarify this question. His antiplatonistic view of mathematics contradicts the widespread understanding of proofs as logical derivations from a set of axioms or assumptions. Wittgenstein's critique of traditional proofs of the infinity of prime numbers, specifically those of Euler and Euclid, not only offers philosophical insight but also suggests substantive improvements. A careful examination of his comments leads to a deeper understanding of what proves the infinity of primes.     

Word category conversion causes processing costs: Evidence from adjectival passives

Constructing syntactic representations in language comprehension begins with the identification of word categories. Whether the category information is stored in the mental lexicon is a matter of debate in current linguistic theorizing. The standard view assumes that the syntactic category of a word is lexically specified (lexicalist approach). More recently, it has been proposed within the paradigm of distributed morphology that lexical elements (roots) are stored without any syntactic category information: The syntactic category of a lexical element is determined only by the syntactic context in which it appears (syntactic approach). For processing categoryambiguous words, different hypotheses can be derived from these two accounts. The lexicalist approach predicts that there are productive grammatical processes, such as nominalization and adjectivization, that convert a word of Category A into one of Category B. Such a conversion might be assumed to create additional processing costs. Within the syntactic approach, on the other hand, no additional processing step is expected, because there is no need for any category shift. In a self-paced reading study on so-called adjectival passives, we found evidence of costs predicted under the lexicalist approach (i.e., for a grammatical process that changes the category of a word). More specifically, the present study provides evidence for category conversion from a verbal participle into an adjectival one. We also discuss an alternative explanation for this finding in terms of frequency.     

A Confirmatory Analysis of Item Reliability Trends (CAIRT): Differentiating True Score and Error Variance in the Analysis of Item Context Effects

Numerous studies have shown increasing item reliabilities as an effect of the item position in personality scales. Traditionally, these context effects are analyzed based on item-total correlations. This approach neglects that trends in item reliabilities can be caused either by an increase in true score variance or by a decrease in error variance. This article presents the Confirmatory Analysis of Item Reliability Trends (CAIRT) that allows estimating both trends separately within a structural equation modeling framework. Results of a simulation study prove the CAIRT method to provide reliable and independent parameter estimates; the power exceeds the analysis of item-total correlations. We present an empirical application to self- and peer ratings collected in an Internet-based experiment. Results show that reliability trends are caused by increasing true score variance in self-ratings and by decreasing error variance in peer ratings.     

A test of the factor structure equivalence of the 50-item IPIP Five-factor model measure across gender and ethnic groups

Personality is frequently assessed in research and applied settings, in part due to evidence that scores on measures of the Five-factor model (FFM) of personality show predictive validity for a variety of outcomes. Although researchers are increasingly using the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999; International Personality Item Pool, 2007b) FFM measures, investigations of the psychometric properties of these measures are unfortunately sparse. The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure equivalence of the 50-item IPIP FFM measure across gender and ethnic groups (i.e., Whites, Latinos, Asian Americans) using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Results from a sample of 1,727 college students generally support the invariance of the factor structure across groups, although there was some evidence of differences across gender and ethnic groups for model parameters. We discuss these findings and their implications.