A probability-based formula for calculating interobserver agreement

Estimates of observer agreement are necessary to assess the acceptability of interval data. A common method for assessing observer agreement, per cent agreement, includes several major weaknesses and varies as a function of the frequency of behavior recorded and the inclusion or exclusion of agreements on nonoccurrences. Also, agreements that might be expected to occur by chance are not taken into account. An alternative method for assessing observer agreement that determines the exact probability that the obtained number of agreements or better would have occurred by chance is presented and explained. Agreements on both occurrences and nonoccurrences of behavior are considered in the calculation of this probability.     

A reexamination of stimulus-frequency effects in recognition: two mirrors for low- and high-frequency pseudowords

The word-frequency mirror effect (more hits and fewer false alarms for low-frequency than for high-frequency words) has intrigued memory researchers, and multiple accounts have been offered to explain the result. In this study, participants were differentially familiarized to various pseudowords in a familiarization phase that spanned multiple weeks. Recognition tests given during the first week of familiarization replicated a result of W. T. Maddox and W. K. Estes (1997) that failed to show the classic word-frequency mirror effect for pseudowords; however, recognition tests given toward the end of training showed the classic mirror pattern. In addition, a stimulus-frequency mirror effect for "remember" vs. "know" judgments was obtained. These data are consistent with an account of the mirror effect that posits the involvement of dual processes for episodic recognition.     

Honoring and Privileging Personal Experience and Knowledge: Ideas for a Narrative Therapy Approach to the Training and Supervision of New Therapists

This article discusses an approach for the training and supervision of new therapists built around social constructionist and poststructuralist ideas from a narrative therapy perspective. We briefly discuss some of the pitfalls of current training/supervision in marriage and family therapy (MFT) that are deficit based and/or that disproportionately grant privilege to expert knowledge. We articulate this emerging training approach which utilizes the rite of passage metaphor, centers relationalism, and incorporates the honoring and privileging of new therapists' lived experience, knowledges, skills, talents, ideas, morals, personal ethics, values, beliefs. Concrete practices of experience privileging, re-membering, and creating communities of concern are detailed, and illustrative examples from our supervision work are given.     

Systems change as an outcome and a process in the work of community collaboratives for health

The widespread development of comprehensive community initiatives that aim to improve community health is driven by the need to change the systems charged with delivering the services and creating the policies related to a variety of health outcomes. Georgia's Family Connection initiative is the nation's largest statewide network of community collaboratives for health, with collaboratives operating in 159 counties. Data on community context, collaborative processes, engagement in systems change, and changes in programs and activities implemented, gathered consistently at the collaborative level over 3 years, will be used to answer the following questions. How do community contexts and the structure and processes of collaboratives affect implementation of systems change? How do systems changes affect intermediate outcomes such as the type of programs offered in a community? Longitudinal change in systems change and program implementation is described and significant predictors of between‐collaborative variation in longitudinal change for each outcome are identified.     

Performance gains from directed training do not transfer to untrained tasks

Given the increasing complexity of the tasks and skills needed in modern society, developing effective training strategies is of tremendous practical importance. Furthermore, training that improves performance of both trained and untrained tasks would be highly efficient. In the present study, we examined how directed training contributes to skill acquisition, and more importantly, to engendering transfer of training to untrained tasks. Participants learned a complex video game for 30 h (Space Fortress, Donchin, Fabiani, & Sanders, 1989) using one of two training regimens: Hybrid Variable-Priority Training (HVT), with a focus on improving specific skills and managing task priority, or Full Emphasis Training (FET) in which participants simply practiced the game to obtain the highest overall score. We compared game performance, retention of training gains, and transfer of training to untrained tasks as a function of the training regimen. Compared to FET, HVT learners reached higher levels of mastery on the game and HVT was particularly beneficial for initially poor performing participants. This benefit persisted seven months after training. However, contrary to expectation, both HVT and FET were unsuccessful in producing transfer to untrained tasks compared to a group that received limited game experience, suggesting that directed training and practice can produce task-specific improvements, but improvements do not necessarily transfer from trained to untrained tasks.     

Who is good at this game? Linking an activity to a social category undermines children's achievement

Children's achievement-related theories have a profound impact on their academic success. Children who adopt entity theories believe that their ability to perform a task is dictated by the amount of natural talent they possess for that task--a belief that has well-documented adverse consequences for their achievement (e.g., lowered persistence, impaired performance). It is thus important to understand what leads children to adopt entity theories. In the experiments reported here, we hypothesized that the mere act of linking success at an unfamiliar, challenging activity to a social group gives rise to entity beliefs that are so powerful as to interfere with children's ability to perform the activity. Two experiments showed that, as predicted, the performance of 4- to 7-year-olds (N = 192) was impaired by exposure to information that associated success in the task at hand with membership in a certain social group (e.g., "boys are good at this game"), regardless of whether the children themselves belonged to that group.     

The Utility of the State Space Grid Method for Studying Peer Interactions in Youth Sport

Although previous studies indicate that peer interactions represent an important component of the youth sport experience, studies examining peer interactions in the sport context are limited. Furthermore, the methodological tools commonly used to investigate peer interactions have restricted researchers’ understandings of the complex, reciprocal nature of these experiences. This paper outlines the potential contribution of a novel dynamic systems-based methodology, the state space grid method (SSG; Lewis, Lamey, & Douglas, 1999 Lewis, M. D., Lamey, A. V. and Douglas, L. 1999. A new dynamic system method for the analysis of early socioemotional development. Developmental Science, 2: 457–475. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), to the study of peer interactions in sport. Concrete recommendations to guide the practical application of the SSG method to future peer research in youth sport are presented.     

The Induction of Color Blindness by a Technique of Hypnotic Suggestion

The relative efficacy of auditory feedback, varying in the amount of information contained in the feedback signal, for the self-control of heart rate (HR) was determined by comparing groups of 10 Ss who received either: (a) continuous proportional feedback, (b) discontinuous proportional feedback, (c) binary feedback, (d) heart sounds, or (e) no feedback. At each of two sessions Ss were given eight trials in each direction on which they were to raise or lower their HR.

Without regard to the amount of information contained in the signal, presentation of auditory feedback aided Ss in raising HR relative to Ss who received no feedback; however, feedback did not yield an advantage in lowering it. These results suggest that perhaps the informing quality of feedback is multidimensional and also that perhaps the mechanisms involved in acceleration and deceleration of HR may be different.     

Infant Predictors of Toddler Effortful Control: A Multi‐method Developmentally Sensitive Approach

Effortful control (EC) is a form of self‐regulation characterized by inhibition of dominant responses in favour of more adaptive subdominant responses. In the present study, temperamental antecedents in infancy were examined in relationship to toddler EC. Parents reported on infant temperament at 6, 8, 10, and 12 months, using the regulatory capacity/orienting (RCO) factor of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire‐Revised. Laboratory indicators of this temperamental construct were also collected at each time point via the Temperament Laboratory Assessment. Relations between changes in temperament across the first year of life and toddler EC (mean age = 22 months) were examined using multilevel modelling. Parent‐reported RCO and the component subscale of cuddliness more specifically were the only temperamental variables that prospectively predicted toddler EC. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.