Participant Reflexivity in Community‐Based Participatory Research: Insights from Reflexive Interview,Dialogical Narrative Analysis,and Video Ethnography

Focusing on researchers, the predominant discourse on reflexivity has seldom considered the contribution that participants could make to research through their self‐reflections. To bring to light the significance of participants' self‐reflection in participatory inquiries, I develop the concept of participant reflexivity, referring to the process in which participants use insights gained through self‐reflection for data analysis and group discussion. My discussion is based on a community‐based participatory research project conducted with a group of adult learners on their educational experiences. I examined the accounts shared by one of the participants by using insights from the theories of reflexive interview, dialogical narrative analysis and video ethnography, and found that her accounts played a pivotal role in evoking group reflections and drawing the conclusion of the project. I argue that participant reflexivity is a useful construct that can do justice to what participants can uniquely offer in participatory inquiries. The concept can also contribute to advancing knowledge of reflexivity by complementing the researcher‐focused predominant discourse on reflexivity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The importance of gender and affect in the socialization of adolescents' beliefs about benevolent authority: Evidence from Chinese indigenous psychology

Belief in the benevolence and moral legitimacy of leaders in central government is theorized as a form of cultural capital consistent with the hierarchical relationalism of East Asian societies with Confucian roots. A reliable measure of benevolent authority beliefs (BAB) is introduced, and its convergent and discriminant validity relative to established measures of institutional trust are established. Its socialization as part of the political culture of Taiwan was examined among high school adolescents aged 13–16. Significant gender differences were found inconsistent with traditional patriarchy. Regression analyses showed that within the relationship with mothers but not fathers, adolescents associated higher reciprocal filial piety, authoritative parenting, and authentic (positive) affect with higher BAB. For daughters but not sons, reciprocal filial piety, authoritative parenting style, and authentic (positive) affect in the relationship with their father were positively associated with BAB. Affect‐based transfer from parent‐child relationships rather than authoritarian obligations based on rote learning was a key socializing factor in a contemporary Chinese society.     

Ethical Academic Judgments and Behaviors: Applying a Multidimensional Ethics Scale to Measure the Ethical Academic Behavior of Graduate Students

Using Reidenbach and Robin's Multidimensional Ethics Scale, this study investigated the relationships between background variables and students' ethical evaluations, judgments, and behavioral intentions using 3 scenarios involving dilemmas related to academic dishonesty. The sample included 436 master's students and 142 doctoral students. The study found that the participants used a combination of ethical philosophies to make ethical decisions. The respondents judged improper citations more harshly than acts of inappropriate authorship or the falsification of data. The doctoral students generally considered behaviors related to plagiarism and falsification to be more unethical than the master's students did, though no gender differences were found.     

Implicit learning of mappings between forms and metaphorical meanings

Previous research has shown that people can implicitly acquire mappings between word forms and literal meanings (Williams, 2004, Williams, 2005). We argue, from the metaphor-representation and embodiment perspectives, that people can unconsciously establish mappings between word forms and not only literal but also metaphorical meanings. Using Williams’ (2005) paradigm, we found that transfer of form-meaning connections from a concrete domain (space) to an abstract domain (power) was achieved in a metaphor-consistent way without awareness. Our results support the view that unconscious knowledge can be flexibly deployed in an abstract way not previously explored in the implicit learning literature.     

Identifying the Source of Misfit in Item Response Theory Models

When an item response theory model fails to fit adequately, the items for which the model provides a good fit and those for which it does not must be determined. To this end, we compare the performance of several fit statistics for item pairs with known asymptotic distributions under maximum likelihood estimation of the item parameters: (a) a mean and variance adjustment to bivariate Pearson's X², (b) a bivariate subtable analog to Reiser's (1996) overall goodness-of-fit test, (c) a z statistic for the bivariate residual cross product, and (d) Maydeu-Olivares and Joe's (2006) M₂ statistic applied to bivariate subtables. The unadjusted Pearson's X² with heuristically determined degrees of freedom is also included in the comparison. For binary and ordinal data, our simulation results suggest that the z statistic has the best Type I error and power behavior among all the statistics under investigation when the observed information matrix is used in its computation. However, if one has to use the cross-product information, the mean and variance adjusted X² is recommended. We illustrate the use of pairwise fit statistics in 2 real-data examples and discuss possible extensions of the current research in various directions.     

Big Five personality traits,job satisfaction and subjective wellbeing in China

This paper examines the effect of the Big Five personality traits on job satisfaction and subjective wellbeing (SWB). The paper also examines the mediating role of job satisfaction on the Big Five–SWB relationship. Data were collected from a sample of 818 urban employees from five Chinese cities: Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Dalian, and Fushun. All the study variables were measured with well‐established multi‐item scales that have been validated both in English‐speaking populations and in China. The study found only extraversion to have an effect on job satisfaction, suggesting that there could be cultural difference in the relationships between the Big Five and job satisfaction in China and in the West. The study found that three factors in the Big Five—extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism—have an effect on SWB. This finding is similar to findings in the West, suggesting convergence in the relationship between the Big Five and SWB in different cultural contexts. The research found that only the relationship between extraversion and SWB is partially mediated by job satisfaction, implying that the effect of the Big Five on SWB is mainly direct, rather than indirect via job satisfaction. The study also found that extraversion was the strongest predictor of both job satisfaction and SWB. This finding implies that extraversion could be more important than other factors in the Big Five in predicting job satisfaction and SWB in a “high collectivism” and “high power distance” country such as China. The research findings are discussed in the Chinese cultural context. The study also offers suggestions on the directions for future research.     

Poly‐victimization and executive functions in junior college students

This study sought to characterize executive dysfunctions in poly‐victimized students without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and the relationship between neuropsychological and behavioral rating measures of executive functions (EFs). Based on self‐report data of exposure to victimization and PTSD symptoms, 259 junior college students aged 18–21 years were classified into four groups: poly‐victimization with PTSD symptoms (PVP), poly‐victimization without PTSD symptoms (PVnP), non‐poly‐victimization (nPV), and non‐victimization (nV). Respondents also completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function‐Adult Version (BRIEF‐A). Of the 259 participants, 131 were administered a battery of neuropsychological tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Testing Automated Battery (CANTAB). The PVP group and the PVnP group performed worse than the nV group on most BRIEF‐A scales. When compared with the nPV group, the PVP group demonstrated poorer performance on the scales of Inhibit, Shift, Emotional Control, Initiate, and Working Memory, while the PVnP group performed more poorly on the Working Memory scale and the Task Monitor scale. For all BRIEF‐A scales, no significant differences were detected between the PVP group and the PVnP group. This study showed no between‐group differences for most of the neuropsychological tests except for the Stop Signal Task (SST), and no correlations between these two measures of EFs. Overall, we found evidence of an association between deficits in EFs and poly‐victimization. Although our study raises questions about the relationship between these two measures of EFs, it suggests that the use of the BRIEF‐A in conjunction with the CANTAB provides a more complete assessment of the executive dysfunctions.