Do Teachers maintain their Expectation Bias for students? A longitudinal investigation

Whether teachers maintain their expectation bias for students over time is crucial for understanding self-fulfilling prophecy effects. However, the stability of teacher expectation bias has been largely ignored in the literature. We examined the stability of teacher expectation bias across a sample of teachers and the change trajectories of teacher expectation bias across high-, medium-, and low-expectation teacher groups across all teachers and in the curriculum areas of mathematics, Chinese, and English. Our analyses were based on two-year longitudinal data with four time points from 567 Chinese senior high school students and their 50 teachers. The results showed that across all teachers, teacher expectation bias at the individual student level was dynamic over time. That is, teachers seemed to adjust their initial expectation bias in the first few months but then maintained the adjusted expectation bias afterwards. However, when students moved from Grade 11 to Grade 12 (the last year of high school), teachers seemed to change their expectation bias again. The evidence from HLM analyses further supported these results. That is, all the high- and low-expectation teachers alleviated their initial expectation bias significantly in the first six months and then adhered to their adjusted expectation bias. However, when students moved to the last year of high school, some high- and low-expectation teachers’ expectation biases were volatile again. Nevertheless, most high- and low-expectation teachers (except for Chinese low-expectation teachers) tended to either over-estimate or under-estimate their students across two school years. Further, compared to Chinese and mathematics teachers, English teachers’ biases seemed to be even more stable. Our findings suggested that some teachers consistently over- or under-estimated their students over an extended time period and this could have implications for student outcomes.

     

计算机化分类测验终止规则的类别、特点及应用

计算机化分类测验(Computerized Classification Testing, CCT)能够高效地对被试进行分类, 已广泛应用于合格性测验及临床心理学中。作为CCT的重要组成部分, 终止规则决定测验何时停止以及将被试最终划分到何种类别, 因此直接影响测验效率及分类准确率。已有的三大类终止规则(似然比规则、贝叶斯决策理论规则及置信区间规则)的核心思想分别为构造假设检验、设计损失函数和比较置信区间相对位置。同时, 在不同测验情境下, CCT的终止规则发展出不同的具体形式。未来研究可以继续开发贝叶斯规则、考虑多维多类别情境以及结合作答时间和机器学习算法。针对测验实际需求, 三类终止规则在合格性测验上均有应用潜力, 而临床问卷则倾向应用贝叶斯规则。     

“It is not a something,but not a nothing either!”—McDowell on Wittgenstein

This paper corrects a mistake in John McDowell’s influential reading of Wittgenstein’s attack on the idea of private sensations. McDowell rightly identifies a primary target of Wittgenstein’s attack to be the Myth of the Given. But he also suggests that Wittgenstein, in the ferocity of his battles with this myth, sometimes goes into overkill, which manifests itself in seemingly behavioristic denials about sensations. But this criticism of Wittgenstein is a mistake. The mistake is made over two important but notoriously difficult sections in the so-called Private Language Argument, namely §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein, maximally charitably read, commits no overkill in these two sections. This correction strengthens McDowell’s overall reading, but it is only a first step toward fully bringing out the deep but obscurely expressed insights in §304 and §293, the full treatment of which must await another occasion.     

Effects of psychological interventions for patients with osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of psychological interventions (e.g. cognitive restructuring, relaxation) on physiological and psychological health in osteoarthritis patients. A systematic literature search was done using PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Database through November 2016. Studies were included if they used a randomized controlled trial designed to explore the effects of psychological interventions in osteoarthritis patients. Two independent authors assessed the methodological quality of the trials using criteria outlined by Jadad et al. Meta-analysis was done with the Revman5.0. Twelve randomized controlled trials, including 1307 osteoarthritis patients, met the study inclusion criteria. Meta-analysis showed that psychological interventions could reduce the levels of pain [standard mean difference (SMD) ?0.28, 95% CI ?0.48, ?0.08, P-value 0.005)] and fatigue (SMD ?0.18, 95% CI ?0.34, ?0.01, P-value 0.04). In addition, psychological interventions significantly improved osteoarthritis patients’ self-efficacy (SMD 0.58, 95% CI 0.40, 0.75, P-value 0.00) and pain coping (MD 1.64, 95% CI 0.03, 3.25, P-value 0.05). Although the effects on physical function, anxiety, depression, psychological disability were in the expected direction, they were not statistically significant. In conclusion, the role of psychological interventions in the management of osteoarthritis remains equivocal. Some encouraging results were seen with regard to pain, pain coping, self-efficacy, and fatigue. We believe that more methodologically rigorous large-scale randomized controlled trials are necessary to answer this study question.     

U.K. consumers' perceived risk of buying products from emerging economies: A moderated mediation model

Although considerable research has been conducted on consumer attitude towards foreign products, most of these studies focus on the attitude of products from Western developed countries. Our study intends to investigate the effects of consumers' national identification and culture sensitivity on their perceived risk of buying products from Eastern developing countries. Especially, this study advances the literature by identifying the mediation effect of consumer ethnocentrism and the moderating effect of consumer value consciousness. Taking China and India as focal emerging economies, the consumer survey (n = 308) in the United Kingdom produced the following results. First, U.K. consumers' national identification is positively related to their perceived risk of buying Eastern products through consumer ethnocentrism, whereas their cultural sensitivity has a negative relationship. Second, the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on the perceived risk of buying Eastern products is moderated by consumer value consciousness. Third, value consciousness also attenuates the indirect relationships between national identification or cultural sensitivity and perceived risk via consumer ethnocentrism.     

Delay discounting mediates the association between posterior insular cortex volume and social media addiction symptoms

Addiction-like symptoms in relation to excessive and compulsive social media use are common in the general population. Because they can lead to various adverse effects, there is a growing need to understand the brain systems and processes that are involved in potential social media addiction. We focus on the morphology of the posterior subdivision of the insular cortex (i.e., the insula), because it has been shown to be instrumental to supporting the maintenance of substance addictions and problematic behaviors. Assuming that social media addiction shares neural similarities with more established ones and consistent with evidence from the neuroeconomics domain, we further examine one possible reason for this association—namely that insular morphology influences one's delay discounting and that this delay discounting contributes to exaggerated preference for immediate social media rewards and consequent addiction-like symptoms. Based on voxel-based morphometry techniques applied to MRI scans of 32 social media users, we show that the gray matter volumes of the bilateral posterior insula are negatively associated with social media addiction symptoms. We further show that this association is mediated by delay discounting. This provides initial evidence that insular morphology can be associated with potential social media addiction, in part, through its contribution to poor foresight and impulsivity as captured by delay discounting.     

Validation of the Chinese Revision of Emotional and Behavioral Screener among Preschoolers (4–7 years old)

The study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese revision of the Emotional and Behavioral Screener (EBS), and to extend its application to preschoolers (4–7 years old). Teachers and parents of 216 preschoolers (age M?=?5.11, SD?=?0.9) were invited to complete the EBS, and some of the teachers were also asked to complete the Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (PreBERS) (N?=?80) and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQ) (N?=?90). Results of confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the original single-factor model of the EBS didn’t fit the data well. Based on the results of a series of exploratory factor analyses, we proposed a two-factor model instead, representing externalizing and internalizing problems respectively. The Chinese revision demonstrated satisfactory internal reliability, inter-rater reliability, convergent validity and divergent validity. All these evidences supported its use among Chinese preschoolers to identify those who will be at risk of suffering from emotional and behavioral disturbances.     

A Meeting of the Conceptual and the Natural: Wittgenstein on Learning a Sensation‐Language

Since the rise of modern natural science there has been deep tension between the conceptual and the natural. Wittgenstein's discussion of how we learn a sensation‐language contains important resources that can help us relieve this tension. The key here, I propose, is to focus our attention on animal nature, conceived as partially re‐enchanted (in the sense recommended by John McDowell). To see how nature, so conceived, helps us relieve the tension in question, it is crucial to gain a firm and detailed appreciation of how the primitive‐instinctive, a central part of animal nature, actually serves the conceptual. I offer such an appreciation by closely examining §244 of the Philosophical Investigations and Peter Winch's discussion of it. The general aim is to bring out a certain kind of Wittgensteinian “naturalism” (not as a theory but as a general reminder), a “naturalism” that is fully alive to the rootedness of conceptuality in nature. A concomitant aim is to illustrate the truth of Wittgenstein's saying that in philosophy one often has to pay close attention to details.