On Qualifying Religious Literacy: Recent Debates on Higher Education and Religious Studies in Japan

This article describes and analyzes controversies in Japan brought about by an intercollegiate educational project on religion. The project team, consisting of selected members of the Japanese Association for Religious Studies and the Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society, has been planning a new system for qualifying undergraduates as “specialists in religious cultures” (shūkyō‐bunkasi). It is anticipated that students with this qualification will be engaged in various occupations that require knowledge of different cultures. The project reflects an increased awareness that the academic study of religion should play a social role and be recognized as worthwhile by the public. This article will focus upon the academic and pedagogical challenges that the project members faced in the process of planning a system to assess and qualify students’ literacy in religious traditions. It will argue that religious literacy involves the dynamic ability to put knowledge into practice as well as to reflect continuously upon previously acquired knowledge.     

Psychometric Properties of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire

  We examined the psychometric properties of a German translation of the Child Global Report version of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ). A total of 1219 German school-children (644 boys and 575 girls), ages 10–14 years participated in the study. The APQ was subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis produced five factors that were largely consistent with the a priori scale structure. These factors included dimensions of parental involvement, positive parenting, poor monitoring/supervision, inconsistent discipline, and corporal punishment. Fit indexes from confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the five factor model represented a satisfactory solution for the data, with some minor modifications in scale content. These findings provide initial support for the factorial validity of the child report version of the APQ in German families.     

Emotional fortification: Indulgent consumption and emotion reappraisal and their implications for well‐being

This paper suggests that indulgent consumption could be used as an emotion regulation strategy and that it could have positive implications for well‐being. “Emotional fortification,” where the use of one emotion regulation strategy is correlated with the use of another strategy, is confirmed in this study. People who frequently use emotion reappraisal are more likely to use indulgence than people who use this reappraisal strategy infrequently. Study 1 shows the correlation between indulgence and reappraisal. Study 2 examines the implications of indulgence and reappraisal for life satisfaction and personal well‐being. These findings suggest that indulgence is not always harmful for people and society.     

Callous-unemotional traits in a community sample of adolescents

This study examined the structure, distribution, and correlates of a new measure of self-reported callous-unemotional (CU) traits in 1,443 adolescents (774 boys, 669 girls) between the ages of 13 to 18 years. The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits was subjected to exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis produced three factors: callousness, uncaring, and unemotional. Fit indexes suggested that the three-factor model, with a single higher-order factor, represented a satisfactory solution for the data. This factor structure fits well for both boys and girls. CU traits correlated significantly with measures of conduct problems and psychosocial impairment. Furthermore, the traits showed predicted associations with sensation seeking and the Big Five personality dimensions, supporting the construct validity of the measure of CU traits.     

Associations of blood glucose control with self-efficacy and rated anxiety/depression in type II diabetes mellitus patients

We investigated the possible relations of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level, a parameter of blood glucose control with scores on anxiety, depression, and self-efficacy for 113 outpatients (55 men and 58 women) with type II diabetes mellitus. The relation between the HbA1c level and the self-efficacy scores as well as with the ratings of anxiety and depression was evaluated. A significant relation was found for the HbA1c level with the scores; however, self-efficacy and anxiety and depression showed no association. These results suggest that HbA1c can be maintained at better levels by increasing self-efficacy of diabetic patients.     

Parent Ratings of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms: Factor Structure and Normative Data

Changes in the diagnostic criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have necessitated the creation of new measures for clinical assessment. The factor structure of a parent rating scale containing the 18 symptoms of ADHD was examined in this study. Factor analyses and assessment of differences in ADHD ratings across sex, age, and ethnic group were conducted using a sample of 4666 participants ranging in age from 4 to 20 years old who attended kindergarten through 12th grade in 22 school districts across the United States. Two factors (Inattention and Hyperactivity–Impulsivity) were derived and normative data for a nationally representative sample are presented. A higher frequency of ADHD symptoms was found for boys, younger children, and African-American participants. Potential uses of this scale in clinical practice and research are discussed.     

The clinical utility of behavior rating scales: Comments on the diagnostic assessment of ADHD

Responding to Reid and Maag's critique of behavior rating scales in assessing ADHD, published in a previous issue of the Journal of School Psychology, we provided specific recommendations for improving the accuracy of diagnostic decisions using rating scales and affirmed the importance of these procedures in the assessment of ADHD. Strategies for managing the error intrinsic to the use of diagnostic measures, specifically behavior rating scales, were outlined. A multiple stage procedure, involving one or more levels of screening prior to conducting a diagnostic assessment, was recommended as a strategy to increase diagnostic accuracy in a time- and cost-efficient manner.     

Visual field size necessary for length comparison

Influence of visual field size upon acuity for comparing lengths of two lines was investigated. The visual field was effectively narrowed to any desired size by use of a TV display system. The TV screen presented a portion of the test stimulus, the position of which was controlled by the subject’s eye movement so that his fixation point always coincided with the center of the portion. The test stimulus was composed of two lines arranged horizontally, one of which had a length of 81 mm and the other a slightly different value. Sizes of the narrowed visual field were 20, 40, 70, 100, 150, and 340 mm wide. The comparison acuity dropped rapidly as the visual field was narrowed to and below 70 mm which was about the same extent as one of the two lines. The implication is that our excellent ability for length comparison is only possible when we can observe the whole line at one time.     

Metacognition and proofreading: the roles of aging,motivation, and interest

The current study examined younger and older adults’ error detection accuracy, prediction calibration, and postdiction calibration on a proofreading task, to determine if age-related differences would be present in this type of common error detection task. Participants were given text passages, and were first asked to predict the percentage of errors they would detect in the passage. They then read the passage and circled errors (which varied in complexity and locality), and made postdictions regarding their performance, before repeating this with another passage and answering a comprehension test of both passages. There were no age-related differences in error detection accuracy, text comprehension, or metacognitive calibration, though participants in both age groups were overconfident overall in their metacognitive judgments. Both groups gave similar ratings of motivation to complete the task. The older adults rated the passages as more interesting than younger adults did, although this level of interest did not appear to influence error-detection performance. The age equivalence in both proofreading ability and calibration suggests that the ability to proofread text passages and the associated metacognitive monitoring used in judging one’s own performance are maintained in aging. These age-related similarities persisted when younger adults completed the proofreading tasks on a computer screen, rather than with paper and pencil. The findings provide novel insights regarding the influence that cognitive aging may have on metacognitive accuracy and text processing in an everyday task.