Reliability and validity of the Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale

The reliability and construct validity of the 5-item Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale (WHIIRS) were evaluated in 2 studies. In Study 1, using a sample of 66,269 postmenopausal women, validity of the WHIIRS was assessed by examining its relationship to other measures known to be related to sleep quality. Reliability of the WHIIRS was estimated using a resampling approach; the mean alpha coefficient was .78. Test-retest reliability coefficients were .96 for same-day administration and .66 after a year or more. Correlations of the WHIIRS with the other measures were in the predicted directions. Study 2 used a sample of 459 women and compared the WHIIRS with objective indicators of sleep quality. Results showed that differences in the objective indicators could be detected by the WHIIRS. Findings suggest that a between-group mean difference of approximately 0.50 of a standard deviation on the WHIIRS may be clinically meaningful.     

Factor structure and measurement invariance of the Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale

As part of the Women's Health Initiative Study, the 5-item Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale (WHIIRS) was developed. This article summarizes the development of the scale through the use of responses from 66,269 postmenopausal women (mean age = 62.07 years, SD = 7.41 years). All women completed a 10-item questionnaire concerning sleep. A novel resampling technique was introduced as part of the data analysis. Principal-axes factor analysis without iteration and rotation to a varimax solution was conducted for 120,000 random samples of 1,000 women each. Use of this strategy led to the development of a scale with a highly stable factor structure. Structural equation modeling revealed no major differences in factor structure across age and race-ethnic groups. WHIIRS norms for race-ethnicity and age subgroups are detailed.     

Relative influences of affect and cognition on behavior: are feelings or beliefs more related to blood donation intentions?

This study tested the relative predictive power of affect and cognition on global attitude and behavioral intention within the tripartite model of attitude structure. Participants (N = 264) completed questionnaires that included an item regarding blood donation experience, five semantic differential items, four behavioral intention items, and one global attitude item. Participants were randomly assigned to either an affective or cognitive instruction set for the semantic differential items. As predicted, semantic differentials were more highly correlated with both global attitude and behavioral intention when completed under the affective instructions than under the cognitive instructions. In addition, donors' and non-donors' attitudes on the semantic differential scales were distinguished from one another only when they were elicited under the affective instruction set. Results provide support for the tripartite model of attitude structure. Future research should examine the relative importance of affect and cognition in less emotion-laden domains.     

Research in education: What influence on policy and practice?

This paper is set in a context where increased emphasis is being placed on the “consumer’s” role in research. It discusses the limitations of “knowledge base” approaches, which aim to deliver the findings of educational research to practitioners and policymakers. The tensions between what these consumers expect of research and what it can, in fact, offer are explored, and the conditions under which effective communication can be established are outlined and exemplified. It is argued, however, that the processes of such communication, if they are to establish the necessary engagement of consumers with researchers, will have to take account of the ways in which consumers are motivated and able to acquire new knowledge. In conclusion, it is argued that if the engagement is unsuccessful and the consumers are unconvinced of the value and validity of research findings for policy and practice, then researchers’ ideas will take a back seat in the debate about what is to count as high-quality work that should be funded. The function of research as the critical extension of knowledge may then be replaced by enquiry that comes up with the results the customer wants. Her current research interests are in the relationships among policy, practice and research, teachers’ thinking, provision for children with special educational needs and gender in education. Her best known recent book, with Donald McIntyre, isMaking Sense of Teaching (Open University Press).     

Ingratiation tactics channeled by target values and threat capability1

Several hypotheses concerning the use of ingratiation tactics were tested in a paradigm where subjects believed that monetary rewards were contingent on a favorable evaluation from a supervisor. Manipulated variables in the 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design were (a) the nature of the supervisor's values (i.e., efficiency vs. sociability), (b) the level of threats issued by the supervisor (no threat vs. high threat), and (c) the extent to which the subjects were dependent on the supervisor's evaluation (low dependency vs. high dependency). The dependent variables were the extent to which the subjects used the ingratiation tactics of other-enhancement (flattery) and selective self-presentation. Findings indicate that the manipulation of the supervisor's values affected the form of other-enhancement used by subjects; more flattery in terms of efficiency occurred in the efficiency values condition, while more flattery in terms of sociability occurred in the sociability values condition. The supervisor's values also affected self-presentation; subjects claimed to hold efficiency ideals when the supervisor held efficiency values, but (in line with earlier findings) they did not claim to hold sociability ideals when the supervisor held sociability values. The manipulation of threats issued by the supervisor had a significant effect on the subjects' use of other-enhancement with respect to the target's sociability, but it had no effect on other ingratiation measures. Finally, the manipulation of dependency had no effect on other-enhancement, but it did produce a surprising “modesty effect” on self-presentation. Subjects presented themselves as both less efficient and less sociable under high dependency than under low. These findings are discussed in the light of previous research on ingratiation tactics.     

Interrelationships among subject variables believed to predict cerebral organization

A variety of subject variables have been proposed as having predictive value for determining cerebral organization. Subject variables proposed as likely candidates include strength of handedness, familial sinistrality, writing posture, and sex. The present study examined the interrelationships among these variables by means of a questionnaire given to 847 undergraduates.     

ALL: Automated learning laboratory

ALL is a CAI package designed to give students “hands-on” experience with a primitive learning laboratory. Using ALL, students can serve as either research subjects or experimenters. Both schedules of reinforcement and the nature of the reinforcer may be varied within the program for a number of simple learning tasks.     

Components of IQ Scores Across Levels of Measured Ability

Forty-three (43) students from the Talent Identification Program's Summer Residential Program living in North Carolina took the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised (WISC-R; Wechsler, 1974) during the program. The test was also administered to 50 other North Carolina Students who qualified for the SRP but did not attend, as well as 34 students who had not been identified as gifted. The scores were evaluated for normative and idiographic strengths and weaknesses on the 12 subtests of the WISC-R. The idiographic differences were calculated by comparison against the average score of only the 6 subtests in the same subscale of the test (Verbal or Performance) as well as against all 12 subtests on the test. It was found by means of the former comparisons that the gifted students showed significantly more idiographic strengths on the Verbal scales and weaknesses on the Performance scales than the academically competent sample.     

Development and functional significance of private speech among attention- deficit hyperactivity disordered and normal boys

We compared the development of spontaneous private speech and its relationship to self-controlled behavior in a sample of 6- to 12-year-olds with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and matched normal controls. Thirty-eight boys were observed in their classrooms while engaged in math seatwork. Results revealed that ADHD children were delayed in private speech development in that they engaged in more externalized, self-guiding and less inaudible, internalized speech than normal youngsters. Several findings suggest that the developmental lag was a consequence of a highly unmanageable attentional system that prevents ADHD children's private speech from gaining efficient mastery over behavior. First, selfguiding speech was associated with greater attentional focus only among the least distractible ADHD boys. Second, the most mature, internalized speech forms were correlated with self-stimulating behavior for ADHD subjects but not for controls. Third, observations of ADHD children both on and off stimulant medication indicated that reducing their symptoms substantially increased the maturity of private speech and its association with motor quiescence and attention to task. Results suggest that the Vygotskian hypothesis of a unidirectional path of influence from private speech to self-controlled behavior should be expanded into a bidirectional model. These findings may also shed light on why treatment programs that train children with attentional deficits in speechto-self have shown limited efficacy.Preparation of this article was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant HD22354-01 and a grant from the Graduate School, Illinois State University, to Laura E. Berk. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Douglas Hopper, Christine Mitchell, Mary Ann Snyder, Kathleen Szeminska, Deborah Petrillo, and Eric Zehr in collecting the data. We are also grateful to Benjamin Moore, Clinical Director of The Baby Fold, and Sarah Booth, Vice Principal of Metcalf School, Normal, Illinois, for facilitating the research and to the teachers and children for welcoming us into their classrooms.