Moving from patches to quilts: developing self-aware,reflective leaders through curriculum innovation based on a Patchwork Text approach

A Patchwork Text is a creative approach to learning and assessment based on short pieces of reflective writing to promote deep, meaningful reflection. A five-year study was undertaken to explore whether this approach supports postgraduate students’ personal and academic development and the factors that influenced student experience, within one UK university. Our adapted approach encompasses patches of reflection, a structured Reflective Journal, formative feedback, and action learning within a constructively aligned curriculum. Between 2010 and 2015, 100 students attended the MSc Leadership Development programme and 71% (n=71) completed a questionnaire at the end of the first module. The questionnaire contained mainly open questions. The overwhelming majority of responses (89%, n=63) reported their experience of action learning was extremely positive. Eighty-five percent (n=58) reported that the Patchwork Text approach supported their academic development. Seventy-five percent (n=52) agreed the approach was helpful in relation to their summative assessment which comprised a reflective integrated portfolio. Thematic framework analysis of the qualitative data suggests the Patchwork Text approach increased self-awareness and insight; deepened and promoted on-going reflection; and facilitated critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis thereby enabling completion of the summative assignment. Findings suggest the adapted Patchwork Text approach increased students’ self-awareness as well as supporting them with both their summative assignment and the development of academic writing skills.     

Caution! Warnings as a Useless Countermeasure to Reduce Overconfidence? An Experimental Evaluation in Light of Enhanced and Dynamic Warning Designs

People often display excessive overconfidence when providing interval estimates, which biases decision‐making. Research has investigated the various measures to effectively reduce overconfidence, and the use of warnings has subsequently been considered to have a negligible reduction effect. We demonstrate with two separate experiments that the impact of warnings has to be reviewed in light of dynamic warning designs and cognitive warning process models. In experiment 1, in contrast to previous studies that only used unstructured warnings, we implement a warning incorporating some core elements of a structured warning design based on research in the fields of human factors and ergonomics. Furthermore, accounting for recent developments in the warning literature, we distinguish between static and dynamic warning design. In experiment 2, we examine the effectiveness of different elements of dynamic warnings. We show that a significantly higher reduction of overconfidence can be achieved by combining a structured warning content with a dynamic stimulus change to increase the warning's noticeability. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alternative Lens Model Equations for Dichotomous Judgments about Dichotomous Criteria

The Brunswik lens model typically represents a judge's accuracy using parameters derived from linear regression. This is not optimal if the judgment or the ecological criterion is dichotomous. Alternative approaches, modeling dichotomies using logistic regression, or linearizing judgments with confidence ratings, have not been compared with the same data. Four techniques for deriving lens model equation parameters were compared: (i) linear and (ii) logistic regression applied to dichotomous patient outcomes and judgments; (iii) linear regression with confidence‐adjusted judgments but dichotomous patient outcomes; and (iv) a hybrid with a linear model of the confidence‐adjusted judgments and a logistic model of the patient outcomes. Judgment accuracy (r_a) was slightly higher with confidence adjustment of the categorical judgments. The logistic lens model accounted for a higher proportion of r_a than the linear lens model; the confident‐linear and hybrid lens models were intermediate. For up to a quarter of participants, different methods identified different cues as most important. Display condition differences in achievement r_a and in lens model components are similar with all lens model methods. Each of the three alternative lens model equation methods improves on the linear lens model equation's decomposition of the accuracy of dichotomous judgments. Confidence adjustment improves achievement although it requires additional work from the subjects. The logistic lens model equation explains the highest proportion of achievement, but with a small stimulus set, it is more vulnerable to cue intercorrelations than either the linear or the confident linear lens model equation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intuition, reason, and metacognition

Dual Process Theories (DPT) of reasoning posit that judgments are mediated by both fast, automatic processes and more deliberate, analytic ones. A critical, but unanswered question concerns the issue of monitoring and control: When do reasoners rely on the first, intuitive output and when do they engage more effortful thinking? We hypothesised that initial, intuitive answers are accompanied by a metacognitive experience, called the Feeling of Rightness (FOR), which can signal when additional analysis is needed. In separate experiments, reasoners completed one of four tasks: conditional reasoning (N = 60), a three-term variant of conditional reasoning (N = 48), problems used to measure base rate neglect (N = 128), or a syllogistic reasoning task (N = 64). For each task, participants were instructed to provide an initial, intuitive response to the problem along with an assessment of the rightness of that answer (FOR). They were then allowed as much time as needed to reconsider their initial answer and provide a final answer. In each experiment, we observed a robust relationship between the FOR and two measures of analytic thinking: low FOR was associated with longer rethinking times and an increased probability of answer change. In turn, FOR judgments were consistently predicted by the fluency with which the initial answer was produced, providing a link to the wider literature on metamemory. These data support a model in which a metacognitive judgment about a first, initial model determines the extent of analytic engagement.     

The effects of fixed‐interval schedules on variability of pigeons' pecking location

Many studies that have investigated performance under reinforcement schedules have measured response rate or interresponse time, which reflect the temporal dimension of responding; however, relatively few studies have examined other dimensions. The present study investigated the effects of fixed‐interval schedules on the location of pigeons' pecking response. A circular response area 22.4 cm in diameter was used so that the pecking responses were effective over a wide range. Pigeons were exposed to a fixed‐interval schedule whose requirement was systematically varied between conditions. Response location moved closer to the location of the last reinforced response as time elapsed in each trial. Additionally, as the fixed‐interval duration requirement increased, response locations shifted to the border of the response area and the variability of response locations increased. These results suggest that fixed‐interval schedules systematically control response location.     

HUMAN RESPONDING ON RANDOM‐INTERVAL SCHEDULES OF RESPONSE‐COST PUNISHMENT: THE ROLE OF REDUCED REINFORCEMENT DENSITY

An experiment with adult humans investigated the effects of response‐contingent money loss (response‐cost punishment) on monetary‐reinforced responding. A yoked‐control procedure was used to separate the effects on responding of the response‐cost contingency from the effects of reduced reinforcement density. Eight adults pressed buttons for money on a three‐component multiple reinforcement schedule. During baseline, responding in all components produced money gains according to a random‐interval 20‐s schedule. During punishment conditions, responding during the punishment component conjointly produced money losses according to a random‐interval schedule. The value of the response‐cost schedule was manipulated across conditions to systematically evaluate the effects on responding of response‐cost frequency. Participants were assigned to one of two yoked‐control conditions. For participants in the Yoked Punishment group, during punishment conditions money losses were delivered in the yoked component response independently at the same intervals that money losses were produced in the punishment component. For participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group, responding in the yoked component produced the same net earnings as produced in the punishment component. In 6 of 8 participants, contingent response cost selectively decreased response rates in the punishment component and the magnitude of the decrease was directly related to the punishment schedule value. Under punishment conditions, for participants in the Yoked Punishment group response rates in the yoked component also decreased, but the decrease was less than that observed in the punishment component, whereas for participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group response rates in the yoked component remained similar to rates in the no‐punishment component. These results provide further evidence that contingent response cost functions similarly to noxious punishers in that it appears to suppress responding apart from its effects on reinforcement density.     

Optimal behavior and concurrent variable ratio-variable interval schedules

Concurrent variable ratio-variable interval (CONC VRVI) schedules of reinforcement, and the time-based analog of the same schedule (CONC VT*VT), have been used to determine if the matching law accounts for the distribution of choices between the behavior alternatives more accurately than the assumption that subjects distribute time between the alternatives to maximize total reinforcement rate. The results of those experiments leave room for interpretation. One problem is the lack of understanding of the theoretical outcomes associated with maximization in these schedules. A precise understanding of the characteristics of optimal behavior (OB) could help identify experimental evidence of OB. Here we derive equations that describe the optimal times the subject should spend on each alternative of the schedule. We provide a table of the optimal times for a wide range of parameter values of the schedule that experimenters can use to compare easily experimental results to the results expected if subjects behave optimally. We also derive a function m that relates matching and optimal performance and we prove interesting characteristics of the function. Finally, we describe features of OB with CONC VT*VT and with concurrent variable time schedules that can be used to identify evidence of OB.     

Time and order effects on causal learning

Five experiments were conducted to explore trial order and retention interval effects upon causal predictive judgments. Experiment 1 found that participants show a strong effect of trial order when a stimulus was sequentially paired with two different outcomes compared to a condition where both outcomes were presented intermixed. Experiment 2 found that a 48-h retention interval eliminates the trial order effect, so that participants gave a global judgment about the relationship between the stimulus and the two outcomes equivalent to the one given by participants that received the two phases intermixed. This result was replicated in Experiment 3 in a situation in which the probability of the outcome in the presence of the cue was changed from .5 for both outcomes (Experiments 1, 2, 4, and 5) to .75 and .25 for outcomes 1 and 2, respectively. Experiment 4 found that retention intervals ranging from 45 min to 48 h eliminated the trial order effect similarly. Experiment 5 found that a 10-min retention interval replicated the effect of time upon sequential training found in precedent experiments, regardless of whether participants remained within the laboratory during the retention interval or spent it outside. The combined results of this experimental series suggest that retention intervals reduce retroactive interference in causal learning by allowing participants to use all the information presented across phases, rather than differentially increasing or decreasing retrieval of information about each of them.     

Illusion of confirmation from exposure to another's hypothesis

We examine the influence of exposure to an advisor's hypothesis, in the form of a point estimate of an uncertain quantity, on subsequent point estimates and confidence judgments made by advisees. In three experiments, a group of unexposed advisees produced their own estimates before being presented with that of the advisor, while a group of exposed advisees were presented with the advisor's estimate before making their own. Not surprisingly, exposed advisees deliberately incorporated the information conveyed by the advisor's estimate in producing their own estimates. But the exposure manipulation also had a contaminating influence that shifted what the advisees viewed as their own, independent estimates toward those of the advisor. Seemingly unaware of this influence, exposed advisees were subject to an illusion of confirmation in which they expressed greater confidence in the accuracy of the advisor's estimate than did unexposed advisees. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

医患关系的博弈分析

医患关系是医疗中最基本最重要的关系,也是最复杂的人际关系,建立良好的医患关系是保证医疗工作顺利进行的必备条件。但是这种关系从开始就是有矛盾的,在信息不对称的情况下分析医患关系的博弈情况及其原因,发现医患关系的核心是信任,它为创造和谐医患关系提出对策,并能促进构建和谐医患关系。