Measuring Procedural Knowledge More Simply with a Single-Response Situational Judgment Test

Purpose  This paper describes the development of a situational judgment test (SJT) based on single-response options developed directly from critical incidents and reports a study that tested the SJT’s concurrent validity against ratings of job performance. Design/Methodology/Approach  Situational judgment test items were developed from critical incidents provided by administrators of volunteer agencies. Volunteers who worked at another agency completed the SJT and a self-report personality test. Supervisors rated their job performance on three dimensions. Findings  Situational judgment test scores representing procedural knowledge about work effort were significantly correlated with ratings of work effort performance (r = .28). Conscientiousness was correlated with work effort knowledge (r = .26), but not with work effort performance (r = −.02). Implications  These results provide some preliminary evidence that a single-response SJT format based upon critical incidents can produce valid measures of procedural knowledge and might be a useful alternative to the traditional multiple-response format. Originality/Value  This paper presents a novel way to construct SJTs using single-response options that are less laborious to develop than the multiple-response options in traditional SJT formats. Results of the validity study suggest that this new single-response format can predict job performance and encourage further research on the viability of this approach.     

The effects of number of responses on the postreinforcement pause in fixed-interval schedules

The present study manipulated the number of responses in a modified fixed-interval schedule by imposing a blackout after each unreinforced response during the interval. The blackout duration was varied, and the duration of the fixed interval was held constant. The subjects were initially exposed to a fixed-interval 300-sec schedule. Blackout durations of 0, 10, and 50 sec were used. Following this, a fixed-interval 30-sec schedule was used with blackout durations of 0, 1, and 5 sec. Under the fixed-interval 300-sec schedule, the number of interreinforcement responses varied over a wider range than occurred under the fixed-interval 30-sec schedule. The duration of the postreinforcement pause decreased as blackout durations were increased and number of responses decreased on the fixed-interval 300-sec schedule, but pause length did not vary with changes in blackout duration and number of responses for the fixed-interval 30-sec schedule. The differences in the effects of blackout duration and response manipulation on the two fixed-interval schedules were attributed to relatively greater changes in the number of interreinforcement responses for the fixed-interval 300-sec schedule.     

Long-term potential for imprinting in ducks and chickens

In the first of five experiments, three of four adult ducks who had been reared in visual isolation gradually developed strong approach responses towards a moving panel of colored lights. Experiment 2 provided evidence that the ducks' approach response reflected the same sort of social attachment that is typically formed to moving objects by newly hatched ducklings. Experiment 3 revealed that the fourth duck would not approach the moving stimulus even after additional exposure to it, but would approach a conspecific after group housing had been enforced for seven days. In Experiment 4, none of five adult chickens who had been reared in visual isolation developed approach responses towards the moving stimulus, even though in Experiment 5, newly hatched chicks approached the stimulus quite readily. Taken together, these findings (a) indicate that ducks retain the ability to form filial-type attachments to novel objects throughout their lives, and (b) offer preliminary evidence that chickens do not retain this ability into adulthood.     

Language in benign childhood epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes abbreviated form: rolandic epilepsy and language

Although Benign Childhood Epilepsy with Centrotemporal Spikes (BECTS) has a good prognosis, a few studies have suggested the existence of language disorders relating to the interictal dysfunction of perisylvian language areas. In this study, we focused on language assessment in 16 children aged 6-15 currently affected by BECTS or in remission. An important proportion of children showed moderate or more severe language impairment. The most affected domains were expressive grammar and literacy skills. We found linguistic deficits during the course of epilepsy but also persistent deficits in children in remission, suggesting possible long-term effects. Our results support the hypothesis that BECTS may be associated with impairment to language and suggest the possibility of a direct link between epileptic activity and language development, and the existence of long-term consequences.     

Critical thinking as cooperation and its relation to mental health and social welfare

The purpose of this theoretical investigation was to examine critical thinking as a realization of human cooperation, affecting both mental health and social welfare. Although critical thinking contains a critical stance toward any asserted standpoint, such a critical stance appears, paradoxically, to have developed from cooperation and the shared goals of human beings. Moreover, although critical thinking has been seen in academic literature to be anchored on culturally developed rules and principles of rational dialogue as well as on effective learning methods, investigators have not interconnected critical thinking and human cooperation comprehensively enough. To solve the dilemma, we will use available scientific knowledge to examine how cooperation and socially shared goals are realized in critical thinking, especially in a critical stance. The view of critical thinking as cooperation places it ontogenetically and phylogenetically into a wider theoretical framework which also provides a novel perspective on mental health and social welfare. The deterioration of rational thinking in the context of mental disorders may be explained by failures of cooperation, which can contain epistemic distrust and an inability to mentalize the viewpoints of others. These features may clarify some causes why some contemporary dialogues and critical contributions are divisive in worldwide, especially in social media.     

The Ethics and Politics of Religious Ethics, 1973–2023

This essay addresses the questions, “what good is religious ethics for?” and “what justification exists for the field?” in three steps. First, it canvases how religious ethicists have offered reasons for carrying out work in the field to identify an Anti-Reductive Paradigm that is guided by an Egalitarian Imperative. That imperative functions as a thin, minimal morality of inclusivity and equal respect that guides work in the field. Second, the essay considers the field's ends. Here the focus shifts from values that shape the field's methods to values that can describe the field's purposes. That shift requires us to think in terms of a thick rather than a thin morality, one with substantive rather than procedural virtues in mind. The essay offers a constructive, substantive proposal under the rubric of Critical Humanism. Critical Humanism justifies the study of religious ethics as an enterprise that can expand the moral imagination through its encounter with difference. It is shaped by four values: post-critical reasoning, social criticism, cross-cultural fluency, and environmental responsibility. Third, the essay brings the two parts of the argument together by explaining how to connect such purposes to the thin morality of inclusivity and equal respect. One upshot of the essay is to have us think not only about values, but also about power as it pertains to scholarship in the guild; hence the attention to the ethics and politics of religious ethics.     

New morbidity-problems and peer relations in a sample of Swedish primary school children: A follow-up from the first to third grade

The stability in the new morbidity-problem domains motor skills, reading/writing ability, behavioral–psychological–social function and concentration ability in school, and the stability of peer status and peer preferences as well as relationships between peer status and problems among boys and girls was studied in a sample of 81 Swedish primary school children. The children were rated by teachers and made peer nominations six months after school start, and in the third grade.
There was considerable stability in problems, while the stability in peer status was modest. There were marked gender differences. Boys in contrast to girls improved in motor skills from the first to the third grade, and boys had more concentration problems and multiple problems than girls in both grade 1 and 3. In the first grade, low peer acceptance in boys was accompanied by low motor skill. In the third grade, low peer acceptance in boys was accompanied by deficient concentration ability and externalizing problems. For girls, few relationships between low peer acceptance and problems emerged. Various explanations for these findings are discussed.     

略论春秋战国时期齐国相任的人才思想

春秋战国时期,周王室衰微,各诸侯国为国家的发展和壮大,政体先后向中央集权方向演变,围绕着中央权力机构的系统分化和进一步完善,其人才体制出现了新的特点,重视“中央之人”的选任,尤重相的任置。本文试以春秋战国时期的齐国为例,来分析相任的人才理念的形成、贯彻及社会影响等。     

Unique characteristics of neonatal classical conditioning: The role of the amygdala and locus coeruleus

The central nervous system of altricial infants is specialized for optimizing attachments to their caregiver. During the first postnatal days, infant rats show a sensitive period for learning and particularly susceptible to learning an attraction to their mother’s odor. Classical conditioning appears to underlie this learning that is expressed behaviorally as anincreased ability to acquire odor preferences and a decreased ability to acquire odor aversions. Specifically, in neonatal rats, pairing an odor with moderately painful shock (0.5mA) or milk produces a subsequent relativepreference for that odor. The neural circuitry supporting theincreased ability to acquire odor preferences appears to be the heightened functioning of the noradrenergic pontine nucleus locus coeruleus. Indeed, norepinephrine from the locus coeruleus appears to be both necessary and sufficient for learning during the sensitive period. On the other hand, thedecreased ability to acquire odor aversions seems to be due to the lack of participation of the amygdala in at least some aversive learning situations. The site of plasticity in the pup’s brain appears to be limited to the olfactory bulb. This neonatal sensitive period for learning ends around postnatal day 9–10, at which time pups make the transition from crawling to walking and classical conditioning becomes “adultlike”. The neonatal behavioral and neural induced changes are retained into adulthood where it modifies sexual behavior.     

右美托咪定与丙泊酚在胸科手术中的麻醉效果对比

观察右美托咪定（Dex）联合瑞芬太尼在胸科手术麻醉过程中的应用。选取择期全麻下行开胸手术患者78倒,按随机分为两组（每组39例）：试验组采用Dex、瑞芬太尼和七氟烷静吸复合麻醉（I组）,对照组采用瑞芬太尼、丙泊酚和七氟烷静吸复合麻醉（Ⅱ组）。试验组患者苏醒期躁动明显少于对照组（P〈0．05）,两组苏醒时间差异无统计学意义（P〉0．05）。因此,Dex联合瑞芬太尼在胸科手术麻醉中能够安全有效地抑制双腔气管插管反应,保持血流动力学的稳定,同时明显减少患者在苏醒期躁动。