Type A behaviour in pre-school children: Interrater reliability, stability over six months and subcomponents

Type A behaviour was measured in 250 boys and 245 girls (ages 3-7) using a Swedish version of Matthews' Youth Test for Health (MYTH). In addition, speech and voice characteristics (speed, loudness, response latency) were measured. Each child was independently rated by two play group leaders and measurements were repeated after a six month interval. Interrater reliability (first session) was 0.76 for both sexes and did not change with the age of the child. Boys obtained significantly (p less than 0.0001) higher scores than girls. Correlations over the six month period were 0.64 and 0.60 (p less than 0.001) for the two possible combinations of different raters and slightly higher (0.75 and 0.68, p less than 0.001) when the same rater was used. Two components of Type A behaviour were identified from a factor analysis of the data: impatience and competitiveness, and they accounted for 57% of the total variance. As for the total scale, boys obtained significantly higher scores than girls on both subscales. Scores on the competitiveness scale increased systematically with age. Speech and voice characteristics correlated significantly with Type A scores (total Type A behaviour: r = 0.50, using different raters, and 0.71, using the same raters, p less than 0.001) and, once again, boys obtained significantly (p less than 0.001) higher scores than girls. The results are in close agreement with the American findings from the original scale. It was concluded that the scale provides a reliable and valid instrument for measuring Type A or Type A-like behaviours in pre-school children.     

Modeling item responses when different subjects employ different solution strategies

A model is presented for item responses when different subjects employ different strategies, but only responses, not choice of strategy, can be observed. Using substantive theory to differentiate the likelihoods of response vectors under a fixed set of strategies, we model response probabilities in terms of item parameters for each strategy, proportions of subjects employing each strategy, and distributions of subject proficiency within strategies. The probabilities that an individual subject employed the various strategies can then be obtained, along with a conditional estimate of proficiency under each. A conceptual example discusses response strategies for spatial rotation tasks, and a numerican example resolves a population of subjects into subpopulations of valid responders and random guessers.The first author's work was supported by Contract No. N00014-85-K-0683, project designation NR 150-539, from the Cognitive Science Program, Cognitive and Neural Sciences Division, Office of Naval Research. We are grateful to Murray Aitkin, Isaac Bejar, Neil Dorans, Frederiksen, and Marklyn Wingersky for their comments and suggestions, and to Alison Gooding, Maxine Kingston, Donna Lembeck, Joling Liang, and Kentaro Yamamoto for their assistance with Example 2.     

Continuous and discrete latent structure models for item response data

Relations are examined between latent trait and latent class models for item response data. Conditions are given for the two-latent class and two-parameter normal ogive models to agree, and relations between their item parameters are presented. Generalizationss are then made to continuous models with more than one latent trait and discrete models with more than two latent classes, and methods are presented for relating latent class models to factor models for dichotomized variables. Results are illustrated using data from the Law School Admission Test, previously analyzed by several authors.     

Finite mixtures in confirmatory factor-analysis models

In this paper, various types of finite mixtures of confirmatory factor-analysis models are proposed for handling data heterogeneity. Under the proposed mixture approach, observations are assumed to be drawn from mixtures of distinct confirmatory factor-analysis models. But each observation does not need to be identified to a particular model prior to model fitting. Several classes of mixture models are proposed. These models differ by their unique representations of data heterogeneity. Three different sampling schemes for these mixture models are distinguished. A mixed type of the these three sampling schemes is considered throughout this article. The proposed mixture approach reduces to regular multiple-group confirmatory factor-analysis under a restrictive sampling scheme, in which the structural equation model for each observation is assumed to be known. By assuming a mixture of multivariate normals for the data, maximum likelihood estimation using the EM (Expectation-Maximization) algorithm and the AS (Approximate-Scoring) method are developed, respectively. Some mixture models were fitted to a real data set for illustrating the application of the theory. Although the EM algorithm and the AS method gave similar sets of parameter estimates, the AS method was found computationally more efficient than the EM algorithm. Some comments on applying the mixture approach to structural equation modeling are made.Note: This paper is one of the Psychometric Society's 1995 Dissertation Award papers.—EditorThis article is based on the dissertation of the author. The author would like to thank Peter Bentler, who was the dissertation chair, for guidance and encouragement of this work. Eric Holman, Robert Jennrich, Bengt Muthén, and Thomas Wickens, who served as the committee members for the dissertation, had been very supportive and helpful. Michael Browne is appreciated for discussing some important points about the use of the approximate information in the dissertation. Thanks also go to an anonymous associate editor, whose comments were very useful for the revision of an earlier version of this article.     

计量测验效度的一种方法——测量目标结构空间的实证性因素分析

该文提出了计量测验效度的一种统一方法。首先,根据测量目标由测验编制者提出一组可能的线性拟合模型,拟合模型的集合称作“测量目标结构空间”。然后运用实证性因素分析对各个假设的拟合模型进行多方面的拟合良好性检验。若其中的某一假设模型能最优地拟合预测资料,则该模型中的公共因素的方差总贡献与观测变量的总方差的比就可定义为该测验的效度     

传统统计方法面临的挑战:元分析方法

利用计算机构造实验组和控制组总体,进行传统统计方法与元分析比较实验研究。在实验组总体高出控制组总体０．５０个标准差的提下,传统ｔ检验的统计检验能力（Ｐ）仅为为４１％;而利用元分析的方法进行统计分析,其结果与计算机构造模型有很高的一致性从而提出元分析方法在进入心理学实验研究和证实理论方面的有效性和可靠性,以及传统统计方法面临挑战的事实。     

Precuing the Target Location in Visual Searching by a Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes): Effects of Precue Validity

A chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes ) performed a visual search task using a modified matching-to-sample procedure in which a sample stimulus was followed by the search display, which contained one stimulus identical to the sample (target) and several uniform stimuli different from the sample (distractors). On cued trials, while the subject was observing the sample, a white square (precue) appeared at the location where the target was to be presented (valid trials), or elsewhere (invalid trials). The validity of the precue (correspondence between the cued and the target locations) was changed from 0% to 100% across conditions. Cost-benefit analyses were performed on the difference between valid and noncued trials (benefit) and between invalid and noncued trials (cost). Under the high-validity conditions, the response times were shorter when the cued location corresponded to the target location than when the precue did not appear. When the cued location did not correspond to the target location, on the other hand, the subject took longer to select the target than on noncued trials. When the validity of the precue was relatively low, however, cost of the invalid trials disappeared, while benefit of the valid trials remained. These results confirmed the two-process (automatic and attentional) theory of priming in human information processing; the advance information had the same effects on a chimpanzee's visual search performance as on humans'.     

The creative potential of play and regression in analytical training: a personal reflection

The seminar group can serve as a framework in which to meet the fear generated during training. The group can become a maddening environment, but on occasions when it is experienced by the trainee as good enough, it can act like a playgroup which facilitates development. Experiences in the group can be viewed from the perspectives of group dynamics or of transference phenomena which embody regression. When this regression enables scope for play it can serve in the interests of ego development in the process of discovering the sort of analyst the trainee is becoming as the training unfolds. During play aspects of oneself can merge, then differentiate again. They can have different meanings at the same time. The rational and emotional, the adult and the childlike are all given a place in play.     

BEHAVIORAL CUSPS: A DEVELOPMENTAL AND PRAGMATIC CONCEPT FOR BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

Most concepts of development explain certain behavior changes as products or markers of the invariable succession of emerging periods, stages, refinements, or achievements that define and order much of an individual's life. A different but comparable concept can be derived from the most basic mechanisms of behavior analysis, which are its environmental contingencies, and from its most basic strategy, which is to study behavior as its subject matter. From a behavior-analytic perspective, the most fundamental developmental questions are (a) whether these contingencies vary in any systematic way across the life span, and thus make behavior change in a correspondingly systematic way; and (b) whether some of these contingencies and their changes have more far-reaching consequences than others, in terms of the importance to the organism and others, of the behavior classes they change. Certain behavior changes open the door to especially broad or especially important further behavior change, leading to the concept of the behavioral cusp. A behavioral cusp, then, is any behavior change that brings the organism's behavior into contact with new contingencies that have even more far-reaching consequences. Of all the environmental contingencies that change or maintain behavior, those that accomplish cusps are developmental. Behavior change remains the fundamental phenomenon of development for a behavior-analytic view; a cusp is a special instance of behavior change, a change crucial to what can come next.     

Self- and cross-citations in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior: 1983-1992

We examined self- and cross-citation practices in JABA and JEAB from 1983 through 1992. Mean levels of self-citation for JABA and for JEAB were 22.6% and 36.1%, respectively. Overall, 2.4% of JABA citations were JEAB articles, and 0.6% of JEAB citations were JABA articles, which suggests limited integration of basic and applied research.