A Review of Ministering to Older Adults: The Building Blocks

Book reviewed in this article: Donald R. Koepke, Ed. (2005). Ministering to Older Adults: The Building Blocks.     

The availability and effectiveness of reported mediators in associative learning: A historical review and an experimental investigation

This paper provides a historical review and empirical investigation of the availability and the effectiveness of different types of mediator in associative learning, as inferred from subjects’ retrospective reports. Mental imagery is a preferred mediational strategy in the learning of pairs of common concrete nouns, and its use is associated with a high level of recall performance. Its availability and its effectiveness are both enhanced if subjects are given interactive imagery instructions. It is argued that retrospective mediator reports provide valid accounts of the cognitive processes that occur at the time of learning and that play a causal role in determining the subsequent level of retention.     

Response selection in paired-associate learning

Ss were presented pairs of items on study cycles; on test cycles Ss were presented the stimulus items and required either to recall the correct response or to indicate the correct response from three alternatives. It was demonstrated that Ss who chose the correct responses from the alternatives tended to select from both stimulus and response compounds so that the association was between stimulus and response components. The amount of selection from the response compounds was comparable to that from the stimulus compounds.     

The interpretation of a test validity coefficient in terms of increased efficiency of a selected group of personnel

The predictive efficiency of a test used to select personnel is defined in terms of total effectiveness of the group thus selected, as compared with chance selection. The formula developed requires the use of an estimate of the ratio of average effectiveness of men selected to the average effectiveness of men not selected by the test. The predictive efficiency of the test varies directly with the magnitude of this ratio and also directly with the percentage rejected.     

The theory of the estimation of test reliability

The theoretically best estimate of the reliability coefficient is stated in terms of a precise definition of the equivalence of two forms of a test. Various approximations to this theoretical formula are derived, with reference to several degrees of completeness of information about the test and to special assumptions. The familiar Spearman-Brown Formula is shown to be a special case of the general formulation of the problem of reliability. Reliability coefficients computed in various ways are presented for comparative purposes.     

The relation between the difficulty and the differential validity of a test

Using scores of 1200 students on a long test as a criterion, each of five subtests of different difficulty has maximum correlation with the criterion when the criterion is dichotomized at a value appropriate to the difficulty of the subtest. A 50-item test element is scored on an all-or-none basis with different standards for passing, and the percentage of passes for successive points on the criterion variable is computed. The Constant Method is applied to this relationship. The limen thus computed is a measure of difficulty, the dispersion is a measure of average (or total) validity, and the slope of the curve is a measure of differential validity. The difficulty of a test element is thus directly related to the maximum differential validity.     

Trapping the Metasemantic Metaphilosophical Deflationist?

Some philosophers are metaphilosophical deflationists for metasemantic reasons. These theorists take standard philosophical assertions to be defective in some manner. There are various versions of metasemantic metaphilosophical deflationism, but a trap awaits any global version of it: metasemantics itself is a part of philosophy, so in deflating philosophy these theorists have thereby deflated the foundation of their deflationism. The present article discusses this issue and the prospects for an adequate response to the trap. Contrary to most historical responses (some of which it discusses), the article argues that the best response to the trap is to adopt a local but still pervasive metasemantic deflationism. Such a response might seem ad hoc, but the article argues that the human activity of philosophy isn't a natural kind, and that a heterogeneous metaphilosophy of the appropriate kind is well motivated.