基于项目区分度的双目标CD-CAT选题策略

针对双目标CD-CAT,将六种项目区分度（鉴别力D、一般区分度GDI、优势比OR、2PL的区分度a、属性区分度ADI、认知诊断区分度CDI）分别与IPA方法结合,得到新的选题策略。模拟研究比较了它们的表现,还考察了区分度分层在控制项目曝光的表现。结果发现：新方法都能明显提高知识状态的判准率和能力估计精度;分层选题均能很好地提高题库利用率。总体上,OR加权能显著提高测量精度;OR分层选题在保证测量精度条件下显著提高项目曝光均匀性。     

Depression and Suicidal Ideation After Predictive Testing for Huntington's Disease: A Two-Year Follow-up Study

The present study reports a two-year follow-up of psychological effects of predictive testing for Huntington's disease. Questionnaires assessing depression, general health, well-being, self injurious behavior, life satisfaction, and lifestyle were completed by 35 carriers and 58 non-carriers before the predictive test, and 2, 6, 12, and 24 months afterwards. Both carriers and non-carriers showed high suicidal ideation before the predictive testing. Depression scores and frequency of suicidal thoughts increased for carriers, compared to non-carriers, over time. There were no differences regarding life satisfaction or life style between carriers and non-carriers. Predictive testing was beneficial in reducing overall ill-health symptoms and increasing well-being for those initially expressing concern about Huntington's disease. The importance of assessing suicidal ideation and of continuing to provide adequate support is emphasized.     

Why Me? Why Not Me?

The decision to undergo BRCA testing is very complex and emotionally laden. This decision can be further complicated by the loss of a mother at an early age. The following personal account by a genetic counselor discusses the testing process and the struggle to accept the results and reframe one’s self-identity. The sensitive nature of this testing and the implications for other family members is explored.     

Confidence in accuracy moderates the benefits of retrieval practice

ABSTRACT

The effect of Retrieval Practice refers to the phenomenon that taking a practice test is more effective for learning than re-study, probably due to the benefit from processes underlying successful retrievals during practice. However, it is rarely studied whether other processes (e.g., metacognitive monitoring) during retrieval practice may also play an important role. In two experiments, we examined whether the effectiveness of retrieval was affected by subjects’ confidence in their retrieval success. Subjects studied word-pairs and rated their confidence after each practice test trial (cued-recall in Exp.1, multiple choice in Exp.2), or re-study trial. In both experiments, we observed the classic retrieval practice effect. Moreover, in Exp.2, the benefits differed as a function of subjects’ confidence in their retrieval performance: the effect of retrieval practice only emerged for high-confidence trials with higher than 56% confidence. In summary, the retrieval practice only facilitates the retention of correct answers with high confidence.     

Retrieval practice benefits memory precision

ABSTRACT

Although previous research on retrieval practice (RP) has predominantly featured stimuli with discrete right-or-wrong answers, continuous measures offer potentially greater sensitivity in assessing the effects of RP on memory precision. The present study used a colour gradient (125 points ranging from magenta to yellow) as a continuous response variable. The colours of different images were learned through either RP or restudy and either one or three cycles of practice after initial study. On a delayed final test, participants’ memory was assessed for each item’s colour. Participants also created per-item intervals representing the region where they believed the correct colour most likely to have been. We found that repeated rounds of RP enhanced the correspondence between responses and the correct colour. In addition, RP led to participants creating more accurate (correct answers were more likely to be within the participant-specified intervals) and more precise (narrower) intervals relative to restudy, suggesting that RP enhances the precision of memories.     

《心理统计学》教学内容的新探索

本文在对当前国内外主要心理统计学教材进行比较的基础上,指出与上个世纪八十年代的心理统计学教材内容相比较,在内容上的新探索主要体现在（1）由“假设检验”的内容中发展出“统计检验力”和“效果大小”的统计指标和估计方法;（2）引进一般线性模型来统合方差分析和回归分析这两种统计方法;（3）适度增加一些“多元统计分析”的内容等三个方面.本文对前两个方面的新内容作了简要评述,并对教材内容的编排方面提出了新的思路.     

Handedness and Hemispheric Asymmetry in the Control Of Movements

This study investigated the influence of hemispheric specialization of function on the motor performance of the hands. Right-handed (n=17), ambidextral (n=21), and ambisinistral (n=12) subjects performed Fitts' (1954) reciprocal tapping task under two conditions with each hand. Conditions had the same index of difficulty but differed in movement precision. The left hand of righthanders was superior in the condition requiring the greatest amount of preprogramming. Conversely, the right hand was not superior in the condition having the greatest demand for feedback control. For ambidextrals, left-hand superiority in the relatively preprogrammed condition was also revealed. Ambisinistrals showed no significant difference between conditions with either hand. The results partially support the hypothesis that the motor performance of the hands mirrors the dominant processing mode of their contralateral hemisphere. Failure to find supportive evidence in ambisinistrals is consistent with the contention that they lack hemispheric specialization of function.     

Evaluating Structural Equation Models for Categorical Outcomes: A New Test Statistic and a Practical Challenge of Interpretation

This research is concerned with two topics in assessing model fit for categorical data analysis. The first topic involves the application of a limited-information overall test, introduced in the item response theory literature, to structural equation modeling (SEM) of categorical outcome variables. Most popular SEM test statistics assess how well the model reproduces estimated polychoric correlations. In contrast, limited-information test statistics assess how well the underlying categorical data are reproduced. Here, the recently introduced C₂ statistic of Cai and Monroe (2014) is applied. The second topic concerns how the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) fit index can be affected by the number of categories in the outcome variable. This relationship creates challenges for interpreting RMSEA. While the two topics initially appear unrelated, they may conveniently be studied in tandem since RMSEA is based on an overall test statistic, such as C₂. The results are illustrated with an empirical application to data from a large-scale educational survey.     

Sick? Or slow? On the origins of intelligence as a psychological object

This paper examines the first moments of the emergence of “psychometrics” as a discipline, using a history of the Binet–Simon test (precursor to the Stanford–Binet) to engage the question of how intelligence became a “psychological object.” To begin to answer this, we used a previously-unexamined set of French texts to highlight the negotiations and collaborations that led Alfred Binet (1857–1911) to identify “mental testing” as a research area worth pursuing. This included a long-standing rivalry with Désiré-Magloire Bourneville (1840–1909), who argued for decades that psychiatrists ought to be the professional arbiters of which children would be removed from the standard curriculum and referred to special education classes in asylums. In contrast, Binet sought to keep children in schools and conceived of a way for psychologists to do this. Supported by the Société libre de l'étude psychologique de l'enfant [Free society for the psychological study of the child], and by a number of collaborators and friends, he thus undertook to create a “metric” scale of intelligence—and the associated testing apparatus—to legitimize the role of psychologists in a to-that-point psychiatric domain: identifying and treating “the abnormal”. The result was a change in the earlier law requiring all healthy French children to attend school, between the ages of 6 and 13, to recognize instead that otherwise normal children sometimes need special help: they are “slow” (arriéré), but not “sick.” This conceptualization of intelligence was then carried forward, through the test's influence on Lewis Terman (1877–1956) and Lightner Witmer (1867–1956), to shape virtually all subsequent thinking about intelligence testing and its role in society.     

Risk perceptions,worry, and attitudes about genetic testing for breast cancer susceptibility

This study assessed the unique associations of risk perceptions and worry with attitudes about genetic testing for breast cancer susceptibility. Women (general practitioner clinic attenders, university students, and first-degree relatives of breast cancer survivors; N?=?303) read information about genetic testing and completed measures assessing perceived cancer risk, cancer worry, and genetic testing attitudes and beliefs. Worry was associated with greater interest in genetic testing, stronger beliefs that testing has detrimental emotional consequences, and positive beliefs about benefits of testing and risk-reducing surgeries. Perceived risk was unrelated to interest and associated with more skeptical beliefs about emotional consequences and benefits of testing and risk-reducing surgeries. At low worry levels, testing interest increased with more positive beliefs about testing benefits; at high worry levels, interest was high regardless of benefits beliefs. The findings support Leventhal's Common-Sense Model of self-regulation delineating interactive influences of risk-related cognitions and emotions on information processing and behavior.