Measurement invariance,factor analysis and factorial invariance

Several concepts are introduced and defined: measurement invariance, structural bias, weak measurement invariance, strong factorial invariance, and strict factorial invariance. It is shown that factorial invariance has implications for (weak) measurement invariance. Definitions of fairness in employment/admissions testing and salary equity are provided and it is argued that strict factorial invariance is required for fairness/equity to exist. Implications for item and test bias are developed and it is argued that item or test bias probably depends on the existence of latent variables that are irrelevant to the primary goal of test constructers.Presidential address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society in Berkeley, California, June 18–20, 1993.     

Comprehensive Counselling: One Pupil's Integration

A case-study is used to show how an eclectic approach towards counselling can be helpful in the integration of a child with special educational needs into a mainstream secondary school. The value of a problem-solving model which focuses on personal agency and self-help skills is demonstrated. In particular, the effectiveness of goal setting, feedback and modelling to change perceptions, increase self-responsibility and change behaviour is emphasised. Limitations of the school context, particularly the attitudes of some staff, on the effectiveness of the approach are outlined. It is concluded that comprehensive counselling, whilst taking the needs of the majority as a starting point, is equally a means of enabling those with 'special' needs to achieve true integration.     

Temperament and behaviour problems in children: A multilevel analysis of cross-cultural differences

Early temperament attributes have been linked to emerging behaviour problems and significant long-term consequences; however, these relations are rarely examined cross-culturally. The present study addresses this gap, employing multilevel modelling to explain within- and between-culture variances with respect to temperament predicting a spectrum of behaviour problems across 14 nations from the Joint Effort Toddler Temperament Consortium (JETTC). A total of 865 children between 17 and 40 months, with approximately equal age distribution across this developmental period and about equivalent representation of genders, were recruited from 14 nations. Greater negative emotionality was associated with more internalizing problems, whereas higher surgency and effortful control predicted fewer internalizing difficulties. Controlling for age and gender, temperament explained significant within- and between-culture variances in internalizing and externalizing problems (at the broad-band and fine-grained levels), as well as sleep problems. For internalizing difficulties, temperament accounted for more between-culture variance. In contrast, for externalizing difficulties, temperament accounted more for how individuals within the same culture differed from their same-culture counterparts. The within-culture findings suggest universal patterns of temperament-problem relations, informing cultural adaptation of interventions; between-culture findings enhance understanding of the implications of the cultural niche for normative behaviour and adjustment.     

Social identities and intergroup bias in immigrant and nonimmigrant children

Ethnic and American identity, as well as positivity and negativity toward multiple social groups, were assessed in 392 children attending 2nd or 4th grade in various New York City neighborhoods. Children from 5 ethnic groups were recruited, including White and Black Americans, as well as recent immigrants from China, the Dominican Republic, and the former Soviet Union. For ethnic minority children, greater positivity bias (evaluating one's ingroup more positively than outgroups) was predicted by immigrant status and ethnic identity, whereas negativity bias (evaluating outgroups more negatively than one's ingroup) was associated with increased age, immigrant status, and (among 4th graders only) ethnic identity. In addition, a more central American identity was associated with less intergroup bias among ethnic minority children.     

Contextual Career Counseling for Transitioning Military Veterans

Military culture is a unique subset of the United States, complete with its own language, writing style, norms, membership, rank structure, values, and laws (Harmon, 2007 ). Using contextual theory for career counseling, counselor educators can assist counselors‐in‐training in understanding the effects of the military environment on clients who are military veterans. This article includes a review of the literature and a call for research.     

Alternatives to switch-cost scoring in the task-switching paradigm: Their reliability and increased validity

In the task-switching paradigm, the latency switch-cost score—the difference in mean reaction time between switch and nonswitch trials—is the traditional measure of task-switching ability. However, this score does not reflect accuracy, where switch costs may also emerge. In two experiments that varied in response deadlines (unlimited vs. limited time), we evaluated the measurement properties of two traditional switch-cost scoring methods (the latency switch-cost score and the accuracy switch-cost score) and three alternatives (a rate residual score, a bin score, and an inverse efficiency score). Scores from the rate residual, bin score, and inverse efficiency methods had comparable reliability for latency switch-cost scores without response deadlines but were more reliable than latency switch-cost scores when higher error rates were induced with a response deadline. All three alternative scoring methods appropriately accounted for differences in accuracy switch costs when higher error rates were induced, whereas pure latency switch-cost scores did not. Critically, only the rate residual and bin score methods were more valid indicators of task-switching ability; they demonstrated stronger relationships with performance on an independent measure of executive functioning (the antisaccade analogue task), and they allowed the detection of larger effect sizes when examining within-task congruency effects. All of the three alternative scoring methods provide researchers with a better measure of task-switching ability than do traditional scoring methods, because they each simultaneously account for latency and accuracy costs. Overall, the three alternative scoring methods were all superior to the traditional latency switch-cost scoring method, but the strongest methods were the rate residual and bin score methods.     

Categorical congruence facilitates multisensory associative learning

Learning about objects often requires making arbitrary associations among multisensory properties, such as the taste and appearance of a food or the face and voice of a person. However, the multisensory properties of individual objects usually are statistically constrained, such that some properties are more likely to co-occur than others, on the basis of their category. For example, male faces are more likely to co-occur with characteristically male voices than with female voices. Here, we report evidence that these natural multisensory statistics play a critical role in the learning of novel, arbitrary associative pairs. In Experiment 1, we found that learning of pairs consisting of human voices and gender-congruent faces was superior to learning of pairs consisting of human voices and gender-incongruent faces or of pairs consisting of human voices and pictures of inanimate objects (plants and rocks). In Experiment 2, we found that this “categorical congruency” advantage extended to nonhuman stimuli, as well—namely, to pairs of class-congruent animal pictures and vocalizations (e.g., dogs and barks) versus class-incongruent pairs (e.g., dogs and bird chirps). These findings suggest that associating multisensory properties that are statistically consistent with the various objects that we encounter in our daily lives is a privileged form of learning.     

Winnicott's invitation to ‘further games of Jung‐analysis’

Winnicott signs off his celebrated review of Jung's (1963) autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections with the warning that translation of ‘erreichten’ as ‘attained’ (implying assimilation) rather than as ‘reached to’, could ‘queer the pitch for further games of Jung‐analysis’. This subtly underscores his view that Jung—who he described earlier as ‘mentally split’ and lacking ‘a self with which to know’—remained essentially dissociated. However, Winnicott, whilst immersed in this work on Jung, wrote a letter to Michael Fordham describing himself as suffering ‘a lifelong malady’ of ‘dissociation’. But this he now reported repaired through a ‘splitting headache’ dream of destruction, dreamt ‘for Jung, and for some of my patients, as well as for myself’ (Winnicott 1989, p. 228). Winnicott's recurrent concern during his last decade was with ‘reaching to’—that quintessential Winnicottian term—some reparative experience that could address such difficulties in constellating a ‘unit self’. This is correlated with his engagement with Jung and tracked through his contemporaneous clinical work, particularly ‘Fear of Breakdown’ (1963). Themes first introduced by Sedgwick (2008) and developed by the author's earlier ‘Winnicott on Jung; destruction, creativity and the unrepressed unconscious’ (2011) are given further consideration.