Does Standard Deviation Matter? Using “Standard Deviation” to Quantify Security of Multistage Testing

With the advent of web-based technology, online testing is becoming a mainstream mode in large-scale educational assessments. Most online tests are administered continuously in a testing window, which may post test security problems because examinees who take the test earlier may share information with those who take the test later. Researchers have proposed various statistical indices to assess the test security, and one most often used index is the average test-overlap rate, which was further generalized to the item pooling index (Chang & Zhang, 2002, 2003). These indices, however, are all defined as the means (that is, the expected proportion of common items among examinees) and they were originally proposed for computerized adaptive testing (CAT). Recently, multistage testing (MST) has become a popular alternative to CAT. The unique features of MST make it important to report not only the mean, but also the standard deviation (SD) of test overlap rate, as we advocate in this paper. The standard deviation of test overlap rate adds important information to the test security profile, because for the same mean, a large SD reflects that certain groups of examinees share more common items than other groups. In this study, we analytically derived the lower bounds of the SD under MST, with the results under CAT as a benchmark. It is shown that when the mean overlap rate is the same between MST and CAT, the SD of test overlap tends to be larger in MST. A simulation study was conducted to provide empirical evidence. We also compared the security of MST under the single-pool versus the multiple-pool designs; both analytical and simulation studies show that the non-overlapping multiple-pool design will slightly increase the security risk.     

A Speeded Item Response Model: Leave the Harder till Later

A speeded item response model is proposed. We consider the situation where examinees may retain the harder items to a later test period in a time limit test. With such a strategy, examinees may not finish answering some of the harder items within the allocated time. In the proposed model, we try to describe such a mechanism by incorporating a speeded-effect term into the two-parameter logistic item response model. A Bayesian estimation procedure of the current model using Markov chain Monte Carlo is presented, and its performance over the two-parameter logistic item response model in a speeded test is demonstrated through simulations. The methodology is applied to physics examination data of the Department Required Test for college entrance in Taiwan for illustration.     

Ambivalent Versus Univalent Voters: Perceived Media Influences and Third-Person Perceptions

By differentiating “ambivalent” from “univalent” voters, this study argues that ambivalent voters need information to reach a decision, which implies they are more open to persuasion through media coverage than are univalent voters. In turn, they may infer that election coverage exerts a greater influence on them, resulting in smaller self–other perceptual discrepancies in terms of their coverage susceptibility. Conversely, univalent voters have made their voting choices early during the campaign; for them, only when the intended influence seems desirable does the perceived influence of campaign news on them increase, leading to a smaller self–other perceptual gap. In other words, ambivalent voters engage in motivated inferences to reduce their ambivalence-aroused discomfort, whereas univalent voters engage in motivated inferences to avoid dissonance. The results of a survey conducted during the official campaign for the 2012 Taiwanese presidential election support these predictions, demonstrating the utility of categorizing voters as ambivalent or univalent when examining the perceived effects of election campaign news.     

Walking Before and During a Sea Voyage

Stationary and moving surfaces impose different constraints on walking. In this study we investigated within-participants differences between walking on a ship before (at the dock) and during (at sea) a sea voyage. Four individuals participated in the study. While on the ship they wore a tri-axial accelerometer (ActiGraph GT3X+; ActiGraph LLC, Pensacola, FL) on their waists. Activity data were sampled at 30 Hz. Data were collected on the day before the voyage began and on several days at sea. The number of steps per day was greater at the dock than at sea. The net resultant force per day also was greater at the dock than at sea. However, resultant force per step was greater at sea (79.97 ± 8.50 vector magnitude counts/step) than on land (62.94 ± 10.03 vector magnitude counts/step). In addition, we observed variations in resultant force per step across days at sea. Ship motion decreased overall activity but increased the force per step.     

Changes in cooperative behaviour and belief in finitely repeated social dilemmas

Economic and psychological studies have determined the tendency to improve cooperation in initial interactions in which people are required to contribute in public good games. The current study examined the behavioural changes of individuals during finite interaction times. Participants were invited to make decisions twice in a step‐level public good game, and their belief in achieving the collective interest was measured. Participants were divided into three groups based on their first decisions. Results showed that high contributors demonstrated high levels of contribution in their subsequent interactions, whereas low and equal contributors increased their levels of contribution after the initial interaction. Additionally, the cooperative level of low contributors increased along with their cooperative belief. The theoretical and practical implications of changes of behaviour and belief in repeated social dilemmas were identified.     

Mother and father socially desirable responding in nine countries: Two kinds of agreement and relations to parenting self‐reports

We assessed 2 forms of agreement between mothers' and fathers' socially desirable responding in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand and the United States (N = 1110 families). Mothers and fathers in all 9 countries reported socially desirable responding in the upper half of the distribution, and countries varied minimally (but China was higher than the cross‐country grand mean and Sweden lower). Mothers and fathers did not differ in reported levels of socially desirable responding, and mothers' and fathers' socially desirable responding were largely uncorrelated. With one exception, mothers' and fathers' socially desirable responding were similarly correlated with self‐perceptions of parenting, and correlations varied somewhat across countries. These findings are set in a discussion of socially desirable responding, cultural psychology and family systems.     

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.