Assessing Intellectual Development: Three Approaches, One Sequence

In this paper, I compare three developmental assessment systems, employed to score a set of 152 interviews of engineering students: the Perry Scoring System (W. G. Perry, 1970), the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System (T. L. Dawson, 2004, 1/31/03), and the Lexical Abstraction Assessment System (LAAS; T. L. Dawson & M. Wilson, in press). Overall, the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System and Perry Scoring System agree with one another within the parameters of interrater agreement commonly reported for either one of the systems, and the Perry system and the LAAS agree with one another about as well as the LAAS and the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System, upon which the LAAS is based.     

领导素质评价失误的原因及对策

本文通过对领导素质评价失误的分析．提出导致领导素质评价失误的主要原因是缺乏规范的评价标准体系、理论研究不够深入、评价主体的认识偏差等因素。并试图探讨领导素质评价的有效途径。     

Threat Assessment in Schools: A Critique of an Ongoing Intervention

This paper critiques an attempt to apply the FBI threat assessment protocol to an incident involving a homicidal threat by a vocational high school student against the district's superintendent. The student who made the threat was treated in psychotherapy, and the school underwent a threat assessment process that highlighted many operational pitfalls common in assessing homicidal intent in adolescents. Psychotherapy was successful, the student returned to the vocational school, and eventually graduated. Recommendations based on mistakes and successes in performing an FBI-style, profiling approach to threat assessment are made.     

Assessing reading comprehension with narrative and expository texts: Dimensionality and relationship with fluency,vocabulary and memory

Reading comprehension assessment should rely on valid instruments that enable adequate conclusions to be taken regarding students' reading comprehension performance. In this article, two studies were conducted to collect validity evidence for the vertically scaled forms of two Tests of Reading Comprehension for Portuguese elementary school students in the second to fourth grades, one with narrative texts (TRC‐n) and another with expository ones (TRC‐e). Two samples of 950 and 990 students participated in Study 1, the study of the dimensionality of the TRC‐n and TRC‐e forms, respectively. Confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence of an acceptable fit for the one‐factor solution for all test forms. Study 2 included 218 students to collect criterion‐related validity. The scores obtained in each of the test forms were significantly correlated with the ones obtained in other reading comprehension measures and with the results obtained in oral reading fluency, vocabulary and working memory tests. Evidence suggests that the test forms are valid measures of reading comprehension.     

State of mind assessments

This paper describes state of mind assessments as undertaken by child psychotherapists. It considers the similarities and differences with an assessment for an ongoing child psychotherapy treatment intervention and is described here as a ‘package’ that is offered to the family, child and young person and also the referring colleague. It is suggested that the consultative aspect has more weight in a state of mind assessment. The stages of the assessment are outlined and include the initial consultation with the referring colleague, a meeting with parents, three sessions with a child or young person and feeding back to parents with further consultation to the referring colleague. The meaning of the request at any particular time is explored and influences the stance and the approach to the assessment by the therapist. A summary of a case example illustrates the different stages outlined here. The thinking and approach described may be particularly useful to trainees and those starting out as child psychotherapists in child and adolescent mental health services.     

Alteration of rhythmic unimanual tapping and anti-phase bimanual coordination in Alzheimer’s disease: A sign of inter-hemispheric disconnection?

Little attention is paid to motor control in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) although it is a relevant sign of central nervous system integrity and functioning. In particular, unimanual and bimanual tapping is a relevant paradigm because it requires intra- and inter-hemispheric transfer (IHT). Previous results indicate that both unimanual and anti-phase tapping requires more IHT than in-phase tapping, especially produced without external stimulation. The aim of the present study was to test the production of unimanual, bimanual in-phase and anti-phase tapping with a synchronization-continuation paradigm with and without visual stimulation in AD patients (N = 9) and control participants (N = 12). In accordance with our hypothesis, these results suggest that unimanual and anti-phase tapping is more altered in AD than in control participants. Moreover, performance is globally more variable in the AD group. These alterations are discussed in terms of possible IHT modulation, in line with functional and structural findings in AD, revealing changes in the connectivity of brain regions across hemispheres and white matter damage.     

Toward an implicit measure of emotions: ratings of abstract images reveal distinct emotional states

Although implicit tests of positive and negative affect exist, implicit measures of distinct emotional states are scarce. Three experiments examined whether a novel implicit emotion-assessment task, the rating of emotion expressed in abstract images, would reveal distinct emotional states. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to a sadness-inducing story inferred more sadness, and less happiness, in abstract images. In Experiment 2, an anger-provoking interaction increased anger ratings. In Experiment 3, compared to neutral images, spider images increased fear ratings in spider-fearful participants but not in controls. In each experiment, the implicit task indicated elevated levels of the target emotion and did not indicate elevated levels of non-target negative emotions; the task thus differentiated among emotional states of the same valence. Correlations also supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the implicit task. Supporting the possibility that heuristic processes underlie the ratings, group differences were stronger among those who responded relatively quickly.     

Effects of alcohol,rumination, and gender on the time course of negative affect

This study modelled associations between gender, ruminative cognitive style, alcohol use, and the time course of negative affect over the course of 43,111 random assessments in the natural environment. Participants (N?=?263) completed 49 days of experience sampling over 1.3 years. The data indicated that rumination at baseline was positively associated with alcohol dependence symptoms at baseline as well as higher negative affect over the course of the study. Consistent with negative reinforcement models, drinking served to decrease the persistence of negative affect from moment to moment. However, this ameliorative effect of drinking was evident only among women, suggesting an increased risk for negative reinforcement driven drinking behaviour. In addition, rumination appeared to counteract the desired effects of alcohol on mood among women. This suggests that women who ruminate more may be motivated to consume larger amounts of alcohol to achieve the desired effects. Overall, the results indicate that ruminative cognitive style and the persistence of negative affect from moment to moment may reflect an individual vulnerability for the development of alcohol use disorder especially among women.