Quality assurance in university guidance services

In Europe there is no common quality assurance framework for the delivery of guidance in higher education. Using a case study approach in four university career guidance services in England, France and Spain, this article aims to study how quality is implemented in university career guidance services in terms of strategy, standards and models, relationship with main stakeholders and quality assessment. The case study findings reveal that the services articulate their strategy and mission as dedication to providing a quality service. However, little objective assessment of programmes and procedures is actually being conducted.     

Effectiveness of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Treating Eating Disorders

This study evaluated the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for treating eating disorder episodes and co‐occurring depression symptoms among individuals diagnosed with eating disorders. Separate meta‐analytic procedures for between‐groups and single‐group studies were conducted and yielded large effect sizes, indicating that DBT may be efficacious for decreasing disordered episodes among women diagnosed with eating disorders; medium to large effect sizes were noted for treating depression symptoms. Implications for evidence‐supported practice and study limitations are discussed.     

The Use of Mobile Devices in High‐stakes Remotely Delivered Assessments and Testing

With Internet access no longer restricted to desktop and laptop computers, job applicants now have the opportunity to complete remotely delivered assessments on mobile, handheld small screen devices such as smartphones, and personal digital assistants. In this study, a large dataset is used to investigate demographic and score differences between job applicants who completed a remotely delivered high‐stakes assessment on a mobile device and those who completed it on a nonmobile device. Based on a sample of 3,575,207 job applicants who completed an unproctored Internet‐based assessment between January 2011 and April 2012, the percentage of applicants completing the assessment on a mobile device was small, 1.93%, but nevertheless represented more than 69,000 people. Overall, there were small test‐taker demographic differences in the use of mobile devices versus nonmobile devices in that mobile devices were slightly more likely to be used by women, African‐Americans and Hispanics, and younger applicants. Scores on a personality measure were similar for mobile and nonmobile devices but scores on a general mental ability test were substantially lower for mobile devices. Tests of measurement invariance also indicated equivalence across the mobile and nonmobile samples. Test taker and organizational implications for completing remotely delivered high‐stakes noncognitive and cognitive assessments on mobile versus nonmobile devices are discussed.     

Badiou,Priest, and the Hegelian Infinite

Abstract

Hegel’s distinction between the bad and true infinites has provoked contrasting reactions in the works of Alain Badiou and Graham Priest. Badiou claims that Hegel illegitimately attempts to impose a distinction that is only relevant to the qualitative realm onto the quantitative realm. He suggests that Cantor’s mathematical account of infinite multiplicities that are determinate and actual remains an endlessly proliferating bad infinite when placed within Hegel’s faulty schema. In contrast, Priest affirms the Hegelian true infinite, claiming that Cantor’s formal mechanisms of boundary transcendence, such as ‘diagonalization’, are implicit in Hegel’s dialectic. While arguing that a clear dividing line can be drawn here between these two interpretations of the relationship between Hegel and Cantor, this paper also mounts a defence of the Hegelian true infinite by developing Priest’s suggestion that Cantorian diagonalizing functions are prefigured by Hegel’s dialectical overcoming of limits.     

Language as a Global Public Good

Language use is a public good. Those using a common language receive benefits that are non-excludable and non-rival. And as more people speak the same language, the greater these benefits are. Sometimes individuals make a conscious decision to learn a language other than their native language in order to receive these benefits, and thereby incur costs. This paper is an attempt to determine how we should share the costs among all beneficiaries. I argue against Van Parijs’s (Linguistic justice for Europe and for the world, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011a) proposal for this, and instead argue that an approach found in the work of Gauthier (Morals by agreement, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986) is preferable. A general lesson to be drawn from this paper is that the correct principle for distributing the costs of (global) public goods will depend on whether we think the good in question is required by justice or not. Where Van Parijs went wrong, I claim, was in thinking that a cross-border common language is required by justice.     

Subjective Well-Being of Older African Americans with DSM IV Psychiatric Disorders

This study examined demographic and mental health correlates of subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, happiness) using a national sample of older African Americans with psychiatric disorders. We used a subsample of 185 African Americans, 55 and older with at least one of thirteen lifetime psychiatric disorders from The National Survey of American Life: Coping with Stress in the Twenty-first Century. The findings indicated that among this population of older adults who had a lifetime psychiatric disorder, having a lifetime suicidal ideation was associated with life satisfaction but not happiness. Further, having a 12-month anxiety disorder or a lifetime suicidal ideation was not associated with happiness. Having a 12-month mood disorder, however, was negatively associated with an individual’s level of happiness, as well as their life satisfaction. Additionally, there were two significant interactions. Among men, employment was positively associated with life satisfaction, and marriage was associated with higher levels of happiness among men but not women. The overall pattern of findings reflects both similarities and departures from prior research confirming that well-being evaluations are associated with multiple factors.     

Measuring Epistemic Curiosity in Young Children

Epistemic curiosity (EC) is the desire to obtain new knowledge capable of either producing positive experiences of intellectual interest (I‐type) or of reducing undesirable conditions of informational deprivation (D‐type). Although researchers acknowledge that there are individual differences in young children's epistemic curiosity, there are no existing measures to assess the I‐ and D‐type constructs of EC in early childhood. The aim of this study was to develop and validate parent‐report scales that reliably assessed early expressions of I‐ and D‐ type EC in young children. To develop the I/D‐Young Children (I/D‐YC) scales, 16 potential items were administered to 316 parents of children aged 3 to 8. These items were adaptations of an existing adult self‐report measure of EC as well as newly developed items. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that a 10‐item 2‐factor (5 I‐type, 5 D‐type) model had the best fit. Construct validity analyses and psychometric data indicated that our newly developed I/D‐YC scales are valid and reliable measures of individual differences in early expressions of I‐ and D‐type EC. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.