Factors Influencing Employee Intentions to Provide Honest Upward Feedback Ratings

Based on current research involving rater motivation, we examined several factors hypothesized to influence employee intentions to provide honest upward feedback. Survey data were collected from a demographically diverse sample of hospital employees (n = 203). In summary, we found empirical support for generalizing extant models of rater motivation to an upward feedback context: cynicism towards upper management and the upward feedback process, understanding upward feedback, and opportunity to observe their supervisors were the primary predictors of employee intentions to provide honest upward feedback ratings, mediated by the (a) extent to which employees perceived positive benefits would result from rating their supervisors honestly, (b) the extent to which employees feared retaliation by their supervisors, and (c) rater self-efficacy.

Faceted Thesauri

The basic elements of faceted thesauri are described, together with a review of their origins and some prominent examples. Their use in browsing and searching applications is discussed. Faceted thesauri are distinguished from faceted classification schemes, while acknowledging the close similarities. The paper concludes by comparing faceted thesauri and related knowledge organization systems to ontologies and discussing appropriate areas of use.     

Categories and Facets in Integrative Levels

Facets and general categories used in bibliographic classification have been based on a disciplinary organization of knowledge. However, facets and categories of phenomena independent from disciplines can be identified similarly. Phenomena can be classified according to a series of integrative levels (layers), which in turn can be grouped into the major strata of form, matter, life, mind, society and culture, agreeing with Nicolai Hartmann’s ontology. Unlike a layer, a stratum is not constituted of elements of the lower ones; rather, it represents the formal pattern of the lower ones, like the horse hoof represents the shape of the steppe. Bibliographic categories can now be seen in the light of level theory: some categories are truly general, while others only appear at a given level, being the realization of a general category in the specific context of the level: these are the facets of that level. In the notation of the Integrative Level Classification project, categories and facets are represented by digits, and displayed in a Web interface with the help of colours.     

化学概念心理表征的初步研究

化学概念表征是化学教育心理学的重要研究对象。化学概念是以命题、表象、产生式和图式等方式表征的。化学概念表征有表象优先性、丰富性、相关性、个体性、可变性等特点。学习者对化学概念理解的本质是形成恰当的心理表征,用“正确度”、“深度”和“速度”等概念,对化学概念的表征可作更为精致的描述。     

呈现方式对小学生和大学生分类影响的眼动研究

使用ASL-504型眼动仪,采用2×2的被试间设计,对22名智力、视力均正常的小学生和24名大学生在两种呈现方式下的分类结果和主要眼动指标加以考察。结果表明:(1)小学生分类结果不存在显著的呈现方式差异,大学生分类结果存在显著的呈现方式差异。(2)被试分类结果是否存在显著的呈现方式差异与其兴趣区数目、注视次数、注视频率、注视点持续时间等眼动指标在相应条件下是否存在显著差异是一致的。     

Diagnostic Discrimination of Patients with Different OCD Main Symptom Domains from each Other and from Anxious and Depressive Controls

The extent to which the subscales of multidimensional OCD measures accurately distinguish patients with specific OCD main symptom domains from controls at different cutscores has not yet been examined. Diagnostic accuracy of OCD measures usually is determined by comparing the total scores of heterogeneous OCD samples and controls and therefore may underestimate the measures’ discrimination potential. In the current study, subtype-specific diagnostic accuracy and criterion-related validity of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R) subscales were examined in 327 patients with OCD, anxiety, and/or depressive disorders. All subscales demonstrated good to excellent criterion-related validity and diagnostic accuracy for distinguishing patients with specific OCD main symptom domains from controls. As expected, the single OCI-R subscales lead to more accurate diagnostic decisions than the total scale. Thus, the subscale-specific cutscores significantly improve the OCI-R’s utility for subtype-specific treatment planning and outcome measurement. Furthermore, an alternative classification algorithm distinguishing patients with OCD from controls based on subscale cutscores leads to a better sensitivity, but also to a lower specificity than discrimination based on the total scale cutscore.     

Feeling of knowing for names in response to faces

Participants were asked to recall the names when shown photographs of faces in both a semantic task (Experiment 1) and an episodic task (Experiments 2 and 3). When recall failed, feeling of knowing (FOK) ratings were solicited. In addition, participants reported on the strategies that they used to make their ratings, whether they could recall other pieces of information (the target-accessibility strategy, e.g., Koriat, A. (1993). How do we know that? The accessibility model of the feeling of knowing. Psychological Review, 100, 609–639) or whether the faces simply looked familiar (the cue-familiarity strategy, e.g., Schwartz, B. L., & Metcalfe, J. (1992). Cue familiarity but not target accessibility enhances feeling of knowing ratings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 1074–1083). In all experiments, FOK ratings were fairly accurate in that participants were successful in predicting their performance on a subsequent recognition test. More importantly, participants reported using the cue-familiarity strategy more often, although they gave higher FOK ratings when they reported using the target-accessibility strategy. The FOK ratings that were given using the two strategies were equally accurate.     

Specificity of autonomic arousal to DSM-IV panic disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder

Although research on the hierarchical model of anxiety and depression has confirmed that autonomic arousability (AA) is more germane to panic disorder with or without agoraphobia (PD/A) than other DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders, studies have not evaluated the differential relevance of AA to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This issue was addressed in multivariate analytic models using 295 outpatients with anxiety and mood disorders. Consistent with prediction, the presence of current DSM-IV PTSD and PD/A was significantly predictive of AA, even when other forms of anxiety disorder comorbidity were held constant. Moreover, latent structural analyses indicated that PTSD and PD/A were the only DSM-IV anxiety disorder constructs to have significant direct effects on AA (in accord with previous findings, the DSM-IV constructs of generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder did not have significant structural relationships with AA). The current findings, which attest to the specificity of AA to PTSD and PD/A, are discussed in context of other clinically salient shared features of these disorders and their relevance to treatment and diagnostic classification.     

A Multivariate Multilevel Approach to the Modeling of Accuracy and Speed of Test Takers

Response times on test items are easily collected in modern computerized testing. When collecting both (binary) responses and (continuous) response times on test items, it is possible to measure the accuracy and speed of test takers. To study the relationships between these two constructs, the model is extended with a multivariate multilevel regression structure which allows the incorporation of covariates to explain the variance in speed and accuracy between individuals and groups of test takers. A Bayesian approach with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) computation enables straightforward estimation of all model parameters. Model-specific implementations of a Bayes factor (BF) and deviance information criterium (DIC) for model selection are proposed which are easily calculated as byproducts of the MCMC computation. Both results from simulation studies and real-data examples are given to illustrate several novel analyses possible with this modeling framework. The authors thank Steven Wise, James Madison University, and Pere Joan Ferrando, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, for generously making available their data sets for the empirical examples in this paper.     

Toward a comprehensive view of the skills involved in word reading in Grades 4, 6, and 8

Research to date has proposed four main variables involved in reading development: phonological awareness, naming speed, orthographic knowledge, and morphological awareness. Although each of these variables has been examined in the context of one or two of the other variables, this study examines all four factors together to assess their unique contribution to reading. A sample of children in Grades 4, 6, and 8 (ages 10, 12, and 14 years) completed a battery of tests that included at least one measure of each of the four variables and two measures of reading accuracy. Phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and morphological awareness each contributed uniquely to real word and pseudoword reading beyond the other variables, whereas naming speed did not survive these stringent controls. The results support the sustained importance of these three skills in reading by older readers.