Perceived organizational structure for teacher liking: the role of peers’ perceptions of teacher liking in teacher–student relationship quality,motivation, and achievement

Previous research has identified the role of perceived peer hierarchies, or organizational structures, in affecting students’ adjustment to school (Lease et al. 2003, Journal of Early Adolescence, 23, 194–217). The purpose of this study was to examine whether middle school classrooms can be described in terms of the perceived status individual students hold for who will and will not be ‘liked’ by the teacher. Specifically we examined: (1) Do students share a mutually agreed on representation, a perceived organizational structure, for describing relative status with their teacher? (2) Are teachers perceived as systematically favoring girls or boys? (3) Are peers’ perceptions of teacher liking associated with individual students’ social and academic motivation and relationship quality with teachers? (4) Are students identified by peers as ‘not liked’ at risk for long-term teacher rejection and underachievement? And, (5) What are the underlying criteria students use to judge teacher likeability? Data for this study were drawn from peer ratings from 516 (262 boys, 254 girls) middle school students in 20 classrooms. Findings indicate multidimensional scaling techniques can be used to map the ‘teacher-liking space,’ accounting for  > 90% of the variability in peers’ ratings of teacher likeability. Additionally, findings indicate perceived status in the teacher-liking space has consequences for students’ achievement and teacher relationship quality.     

Identifying similarities in cognitive subtest functional requirements: An empirical approach

In the cognitive test interpretation literature, a Rational/Intuitive, Indirect Empirical, or Combined approach is typically used to construct conceptual taxonomies of the functional (behavioral) similarities between subtests. To address shortcomings of these approaches, the functional requirements for 49 subtests from six individually administered scales of cognitive ability (WISC-IV, WPPSI-III, SB-V, WJ-III, CAS, and UNIT) were typed on index cards. Forty-eight (48) in-service and/or pre-service school psychologists were asked to sort the cards into two, three, five, or eight functionally similar piles. A multidimensional scaling analysis was performed on a 49 × 49 matrix of similarity scores collapsed across all 48 subjects. Three dimensions were extracted from the data: Reproduction of Stimuli Sequences versus Picture Viewing (Dimension 1), Timed Speed versus Untimed Power (Dimension 2), and Verbal versus Performance (Dimension 3). A hierarchical clustering procedure was then applied to the matrix data, and results were compared to previous categorization schemes identified in the test interpretation literature.     

Beyond Dyadic Coordination: Multimodal Behavioral Irregularity in Triads Predicts Facets of Collaborative Problem Solving

We hypothesize that effective collaboration is facilitated when individuals and environmental components form a synergy where they work together and regulate one another to produce stable patterns of behavior, or regularity, as well as adaptively reorganize to form new behaviors, or irregularity. We tested this hypothesis in a study with 32 triads who collaboratively solved a challenging visual computer programming task for 20 min following an introductory warm‐up phase. Multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis was used to examine fine‐grained (i.e., every 10 s) collective patterns of regularity across team members' speech rate, body movement, and team interaction with the shared user interface. We found that teams exhibited significant patterns of regularity as compared to shuffled baselines, but there were no systematic trends in regularity across time. We also found that periods of regularity were associated with a reduction in overall behavior. Notably, the production of irregular behavior predicted expert‐coded metrics of collaborative activity, such as teams' ability to construct shared knowledge and effectively negotiate and coordinate execution of solutions, net of overall behavioral production and behavioral self‐similarity. Our findings support the theory that groups can interact to form interpersonal synergies and indicate that information about system‐level dynamics is a viable way to understand and predict effective collaborative processes.     

The Recaptured Scale Technique: A Method for Testing the Structural Robustness of Personality Scales

Tellegen and Waller advocated a complex and time-consuming scale construction method that they called “exploratory test construction.” Scales that are constructed by this method—such as the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ)—are presumed to be more “psychologically coherent” and “robust” than scales constructed by other means. Using a novel procedure that we call the “recaptured scale technique,” we tested this conjecture by conducting a megafactor analysis on data from the 411 adult participants of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart who completed the MPQ, the MMPI, and the CPI. We extracted and obliquely rotated 21 factors from a matrix of gender-corrected tetrachoric correlations for the 1,102 nonredundant items of the three omnibus inventories. Robustness of the 11 MPQ scales was assessed by the degree to which these factors recaptured the MPQ item groupings. Our results showed that nine factors were clearly recognizable as MPQ scales and two additional factors represented a bifurcation of an MPQ scale. A higher-order factor analysis of all 21 factor scales yielded five factors that clearly resembled the Big Five. Our results provide strong support for (a) the method of exploratory test construction, (b) the structural robustness of most MPQ scales, and (c) the utility of the recaptured scale technique.     

Goodness-of-Fit Assessment in Multidimensional Scaling and Unfolding

Judging goodness of fit in multidimensional scaling requires a comprehensive set of diagnostic tools instead of relying on stress rules of thumb. This article elaborates on corresponding strategies and gives practical guidelines for researchers to obtain a clear picture of the goodness of fit of a solution. Special emphasis will be placed on the use of permutation tests. The second part of the article focuses on goodness-of-fit assessment of an important variant of multidimensional scaling called unfolding, which can be applied to a broad range of psychological data settings. Two real-life data sets are presented in order to walk the reader through the entire set of diagnostic measures, tests, and plots. R code is provided as supplementary information that makes the whole goodness-of-fit assessment workflow, as presented in this article, fully reproducible.     

Revaluating the evidence for the General Factor of Personality in the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire: Concerns about Rushton and Irwing (2009)

We evaluated whether the Big Five-based hierarchical model for the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) reported by Rushton and Irwing (2009) would replicate in a second sample of 733 participants. We were unable to confirm their hierarchical model and detected problems with the reporting of the original results. Exploratory factor analytic investigations generally supported the canonical three factor solution for the MPQ described in the existing literature. This was the case for both the present dataset and for the correlation matrix analyzed by Rushton and Irwing.     

心理健康素质测评系统·中国成年人多维社会赞许性量表的编制

编制中国成年人社会赞许性量表。参考已有同类量表,通过小组讨论、专家访谈等方法编写题目,通过两次预测筛选、修改并确定量表题目,在此基础上再进行第三次测试以检验量表的心理测量学特征。结果表明,本次编制的中国成年人多维社会赞许性量表具有可接受的内部一致性、分半和重测信度以及结构效度、内容效度、同质效度和聚合效度。结论：中国成年人多维社会赞许性量表具有可接受的心理测量学特征,可被用来测量和评估现代中国成年人的社会赞许性。     

The development of a smoking-specific locus of control scale

Abstract

A 32-item questionnaire was designed to measure multidimensional locus of control beliefs specifically about giving up smoking (SLC Scale), and administered along with the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC) and a short smoking information questionnaire to 211 smokers. Psychometric analyses of the SLC scales included a series of repeated factor and reliability analyses which resulted in a final three-factor solution, containing 11 of the original SLC items. The three factors represented the following types of locus of control for smoking: a combined Internal-Chance factor, a Significant Others factor, and a Powerful Others factor with Chronbach's alpha coefficients of internal reliability of 0.63, 0.56 and 0.55 respectively. Analyses relating to the reliability and validity of the SLC scale are presented and discussed. As expected the SLC correlated more sensibly and significantly with subjects' reported behaviour and intentions regarding giving up smoking than did the MHLC scales.     

Measuring Schwartz's values in childhood: Multidimensional scaling across instruments and cultures

The Picture-Based Value Survey for Children (PBVS-C; Döring et al., 2010) assesses children's values through self-report and thereby depicts Schwartz's theory of universal human values at an early age. Despite evidence on the PBVS-C's structural validity, there remains an open question: Does the PBVS-C measure the same values as does Schwartz's Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ; Schwartz et al., 2001), an established assessment instrument for adult and adolescent respondents? To answer this question about the PBVS-C's validity, Polish (N = 167) and German (N = 119) children's values were measured with both instruments. The multitrait–multimethod correlation matrix (Campbell & Fiske, 1959) of value items from both instruments was analysed with multidimensional scaling (MDS), as proposed by Borg and Groenen (1997). Our structural expectations for the MDS output about the distinctiveness (1) of Schwartz's higher order value types (i.e., traits) and (2) of the two assessment methods (PBVS-C and PVQ) were confirmed in both samples.