True or False? Keying Direction and Acquiescence Influence the Validity of Socio-Emotional Skills Items in Predicting High School Achievement

What type of items, keyed positively or negatively, makes social-emotional skill or personality scales more valid? The present study examines the different criterion validities of true- and false-keyed items, before and after correction for acquiescence. The sample included 12,987 children and adolescents from 425 schools of the State of São Paulo Brazil (ages 11–18 attending grades 6–12). They answered a computerized 162-item questionnaire measuring 18 facets grouped into five broad domains of social-emotional skills, i.e.: Open-mindedness (O), Conscientious Self-Management (C), Engaging with others (E), Amity (A), and Negative-Emotion Regulation (N). All facet scales were fully balanced (3 true-keyed and 3 false-keyed items per facet). Criterion validity coefficients of scales composed of only true-keyed items versus only false-keyed items were compared. The criterion measure was a standardized achievement test of language and math ability. We found that coefficients were almost as twice as big for false-keyed items’ scales than for true-keyed items’ scales. After correcting for acquiescence coefficients became more similar. Acquiescence suppresses the criterion validity of unbalanced scales composed of true-keyed items. We conclude that balanced scales with pairs of true and false keyed items make a better scale in terms of internal structural and predictive validity.     

THE LANGUAGE OF RIGHTS AND CONCEPTUAL HISTORY

The historical problem about the origins of the language of rights derives its importance from the conceptual problem: of “two fundamentally different ways of thinking about justice,” which is basic? Is justice unitary or plural? This in turn opens up a problem about the moral status of human nature. A narrative of the origins of “rights” is an account of how and when a plural concept of justice comes to the fore, and will be based on the occurrence of definite speech‐forms—the occurrence of the plural noun in the sense of “legal properties.” The history of this development is currently held to begin with the twelfth‐century canonists. Later significant thresholds may be found in the fourteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth centuries. Wolterstorff's attempt to find the implicit recognition of rights in the Scriptures depends very heavily on what he takes to be implied rather than on what is stated, and at best can establish a pre‐history of rights‐language.     

Attention in Williams syndrome and Down's syndrome: Performance on the new early childhood attention battery

Attentional problems are commonly reported as a feature of the behavioural profile in both Williams syndrome (WS) and Down's syndrome (DS). Recent studies have begun to investigate these impairments empirically, acknowledging the need for an approach that considers cross‐syndrome comparisons and developmental changes across the different component functions of attention. The present study assessed children with WS and DS using a new preschool attention battery (ECAB: early childhood attention battery), designed to be suitable for mental age 3–6 years including groups with developmental disorders. The ECAB has the advantage of giving an individual profile of attentional abilities for each child, covering different components of attention. In relation to test norms for their mental age, both groups showed a profile of strengths and weaknesses in the attention domain. Both syndrome groups performed relatively well on tests of sustained attention and poorly on aspects of selective attention and attentional control (executive function). The DS group showed a specific strength in auditory sustained attention, whilst the WS group showed a particular deficit in visuo‐spatial response control. There was also evidence for considerable differences in the developmental trajectory of these abilities across the two groups. The results provide evidence for syndrome‐specific patterns of impairment, and distinct profiles of strengths and weaknesses that may be useful in understanding the nature of everyday attention difficulties in these groups and tailoring interventions to meet these needs.