Moral Development and Hawaiian Youths: Does Gender Make a Difference?

This study was designed to assess the moral reasoning of Hawaiian youths. The findings challenge C. Gilligan's (1982) theoretical proposition that gender differences exist in moral development. Implications for counseling theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

Failure to replicate a QTL association between a DNA marker identified by EST00083 and IQ

In a paper published in this journal, a possible QTL association was reported between general cognitive ability and a marker, identified by an expressed sequence tag, EST00083 (Skuder et al., 1995). In two small samples, the frequency of the common allele of this DNA marker, which was shown to be in the threonine transfer RNA gene in mitochondrial DNA, was significantly greater in a high-IQ group than in a low-IQ group. As part of the ongoing IQ QTL Project (Plomin et al., 1995), we have attempted to replicate this QTL association. First, we found that the QTL association remained significant when we compared 51 high- and 51 -average IQ subjects, drawn in part from the samples used in the previous report. However, when we examined the association in new samples of 40 extremely high-IQ subjects and 50 average-IQ subjects, the association did not replicate. This underlies the need for replication in case-control studies of allelic association.     

Are you feeling successful?: Examining postsecondary student perceptions of success with an expectancy value theory lens

Expectancy Value Theory (EVT) is a prominent theory on student motivation. To add to the growing research in this area, we investigated students within a large, mandatory course outside of the STEM areas, to examine perceptions of success utilizing an EVT lens. The aim of our study was twofold. First, to examine students' open-ended responses about what makes them feel successful. Second, to determine if students’ indorsement of expectancy, value, and control could predict their feelings of success. The study consisted of 210 students who completed an online questionnaire with items related to demographics, EVT components, and questions about their success in the course. Deductive coding was utilized to examine their feelings of success based on the EVT components. Regression analysis was utilized to predict perceptions of success. Students identified several components of their course that were associated with expectancy, value, and cost. Students' perceptions of success were positively predicted by expectancy and negatively predicted by cost while value was not a significant predictor. Our results speak to the importance of expectancy, value, and cost when designing large, mandatory courses. We provided several recommendations for instructors when designing courses, and also highlight limitations and future research directions.

     

Motivation in a MOOC: a probabilistic analysis of online learners’ basic psychological needs

Self-determination theory (SDT) is one of the most well-known approaches to achievement motivation. However, the three basic psychological needs of SDT have not received equivalent attention in the literature: priority has been given to autonomy, followed by the need for competence, with research into relatedness lacking (Bachman and Stewart in Teach Psychol 38: 180–187, 2011. doi: 10.1177/0098628311411798). One new educational setting where relatedness may be particularly important is massive open online courses (MOOCs), which provide unprecedented opportunities for either relatedness or isolation. The purpose of the research was to use Bayesian networks (BN) to establish probabilistic relationships between learners’ basic psychological needs in the context of one MOOC. The majority (59 %) of participants (N = 1037; 50 % female and 50 % male) were under 45 (age range was 18–74 years). This sample represented approximately 88 regions and countries. Participants completed a revised Basic Student Needs Scale (Betoret and Artiga in Electron J Res Educ Psychol 9(2): 463–496, 2011). In order to reveal the best structural understanding of SDT within a MOOC learning environment, analysis of the data involved the development of a BN probabilistic model. The best fitting BN model included autonomy, competence, and relatedness—resulting in a probabilistic accuracy of 77.41 %. Analyses revealed participants with high autonomy had an 80.01 % probability of having a moderate level of competence. Relatedness was distinct from the autonomy and competence relationship. The strong inter-connections between autonomy and competence support existing research. The notion that relatedness may be a distinct need, at least in this context, was supported and warrants future research.     

A meta-analysis of support variables and well-being in ethnic minority populations

Aims: The importance of social support as a predictor of well-being has been documented in the literature for decades. The extent to which social support may be uniquely relevant to the well-being of ethnic minority populations has not yet been empirically supported with meta-analytic techniques. The current meta-analytic study attempted to clarify the nuances of the relationship between support and well-being in ethnic minority populations and to identify what moderators may be relevant to understanding such relationships. Method: Data from 111 articles were included in the analyses that examined both the main effects and moderators of the relationship between social support and well-being. Results: Overall findings revealed a greater effect size (ES) between support and positive well-being (r = .38) than between support and negative well-being (r = −.27). Significant moderators included the proportion of females in the sample, age of the participants, and nature of support. Several ES differences were found in support type and ethnic group interactions as well. Conclusions: Implications of these data include the importance of social support enhancement in efforts to increase the positive well-being and attending to gender and other cultural modifiers in future studies of social support with racial and ethnic minorities.     

Noncompetition Agreements and the Counseling Profession: An Unrecognized Reality for Private Practitioners

Restrictive covenants are proven means of limiting competition and need to be understood by counselors. The authors consider the American Counseling Association's (ACA) position on noncompetition agreements between employers and employees in light of case law from other service professions and conclude that ACA members are uninformed and available sources of information (i.e., ACA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, ACA, 1995) do not provide needed information. The absence of information about this important topic puts members at risk in an increasingly competitive private practice market. The authors propose guidelines for responding to this issue.     

MEASUREMENT ERROR IN RESEARCH ON HUMAN RESOURCES and FIRM PERFORMANCE: HOW MUCH ERROR IS THERE AND HOW DOES IT INFLUENCE EFFECT SIZE ESTIMATES?

Studies of the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and firm performance typically use a single respondent to assess firm level HR practices or HR effectiveness. However, previous research in other substantive areas suggests that rater differences are a potentially important source of measurement error. We demonstrate analytically the potential consequences of both random and systematic measurement error in research on HR and firm performance. However, our main focus is on random error and we show how generalizability theory can be applied to obtain better estimates of reliability by simultaneously recognizing multiple sources (e.g., items, raters) of random measurement error. These more inclusive reliability estimates, in turn, offer the possibility of more precisely quantifying substantive relationships in the HR and firm performance literature. In our sample, reliabilities (as estimated by generalizability coefficients) for single-rater assessments of HR variables were generally below .50. This degree of measurement error, if present in substantive studies on HR and firm performance, could lead to considerable bias, given that an unstandardized regression coefficient is corrected for measurement error in the independent variable by dividing by its reliability coefficient (not its square root). We also found only limited convergent validity between HR and line managers ratings of a second type of HR measure, HR effectiveness. In general, our findings suggest that future researchers need to devote greater attention to measurement error and construct validity issues. Our study provides an example of how generalizability theory can be useful in this pursuit.