Measuring current achievement motivation with the QCM: Short form development and investigation of measurement invariance

This article explores the measurement properties of the Questionnaire on Current Motivation (QCM; Rheinberg, Vollmeyer, & Burns, 2001), which measures four factors of current achievement motivation (anxiety, challenge, interest, and probability of success) in the context of taking an abstract reasoning test. Two studies were conducted. In study 1, the measurement model of the QCM was tested, and a short form consisting of 12 of the original 18 QCM items was derived. Data were obtained from N = 350 students completing the QCM in anticipation of working on a test of Latin Square Tasks. In study 2, the measurement properties of the short form were replicated with data from a sample of N = 509 students. Measurement invariance with respect to gender was investigated using multigroup CFA models. The results showed that the assumptions of equal numbers of factors, factor loadings, and residual variances could be confirmed, but evidence for full intercept invariance was not obtained. There were significant differences in the latent means for anxiety and probability of success between female and male test takers, but none of these two factors had an influence on actual test performance, which was instead significantly predicted by interest in the task.     

The assessment of school engagement: examining dimensionality and measurement invariance by gender and race/ethnicity

The construct of school engagement has attracted growing interest as a way to ameliorate the decline in academic achievement and increase in dropout rates. The current study tested the fit of a second-order multidimensional factor model of school engagement, using large-scale representative data on 1103 students in middle school. In order to make valid model comparisons by group, we evaluated the extent to which the measurement structure of this model was invariant by gender and by race/ethnicity (European-American vs. African-American students). Finally, we examined differences in latent factor means by these same groups. From our confirmatory factor analyses, we concluded that school engagement was a multidimensional construct, with evidence to support the hypothesized second-order engagement factor structure with behavioral, emotional, and cognitive dimensions. In this sample, boys and girls did not substantially differ, nor did European-American and African-American students, in terms of the underlying constructs of engagement and the composition of these constructs. Finally, there were substantial differences in behavioral and emotional engagement by gender and by racial/ethnic groups in terms of second-order factor mean differences.     

The association for behavior analysis international position statement on restraint and seclusion

A task force authorized by the Executive Council of the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) generated the statement below concerning the techniques called restraint and seclusion. Members of the task force independently reviewed the scientific literature concerning restraint and seclusion and agreed unanimously to the content of the statement. The Executive Council accepted the statement, and it was subsequently approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the general membership. It now constitutes official ABAI policy. The position statement is posted on the ABAI Web site (www.abainternational.org/ABA/statements/RestraintSeclusion.asp). The purpose of the position statement is to provide guidance to behavior analysts and other professionals interested in the position of ABAI on these controversial topics. In extreme cases, abuses of procedures erroneously used in the name of behavior analysis are not defensible. On the other hand, behavior analysts acting ethically and in good faith are provided with guidelines for sound and acceptably safe practice. To the extent that behavior-analytic positions influence public policy and law, this statement can be presented to officials and lawmakers to guide informed decision making. At the conclusion of the document, a bibliography is provided of articles and presentations considered by one or more task force members in developing the position statement.     

Whom to help? Immediacy bias in judgments and decisions about humanitarian aid

People exhibit an immediacy bias when making judgments and decisions about humanitarian aid, perceiving as more deserving and donating disproportionately to humanitarian crises that happen to arouse immediate emotion. The immediacy bias produced different serial position effects, contingent on decision timing (Experiment 1). When making allocation decisions directly after viewing to four emotionally evocative films about four different humanitarian crises, participants donated disproportionately more to the final, immediate crisis, in contrast, when making donation decisions sequentially, after viewing each of the four crises, participants donated disproportionately to the immediate crisis. The immediacy bias was associated with “scope neglect,” causing people to take action against relatively less deadly crises (Experiments 2 and 3). The immediacy bias emerged even when participants were warned about emotional manipulation (Experiment 3). The immediacy bias diminished over time, as immediate emotions presumably subsided (Experiment 2). Implications for charitable giving, serial position effects, and the influence of emotion on choice are discussed.     

一次性双管喉罩在泌尿外科侧卧位手术中应用探讨

观察一次性双管喉罩全屏静脉麻醉与气管插管全屏静脉在泌外侧卧位手术中对患者循环及并发症的影响。选取泌尿外科侧卧位手术患者60例,随机分为两组,每组30例,A组为双管喉罩组,B组为气管插管组,记录麻醉前（T1）及建立气道后1min（T2）、建立后5min（T3）,拔管后1min（T4）、拔管后5min（T5）对应时刻平均动...     

The Irrationality of Choosing Egoism—A Reply to Eshelman

Despite the vast literature on Rawls's work, few have discussed his arguments for the value of democracy. When his arguments have been discussed, they have received staunch criticism. Some critics have charged that Rawls's arguments are not deeply democratic. Others have gone further, claiming that Rawls's arguments denigrate democracy. These criticisms are unsurprising, since Rawls's arguments, as arguments that the principle of equal basic liberty needs to include democratic liberties, are incomplete. In contrast to his trenchant remarks about core civil liberties, Rawls does not say much about the inclusion of political liberties of a democratic sort – such as the right to vote – among the basic liberties.

In this paper, I complete some of Rawls's arguments and show that he has grounds for including political liberties, particularly those of a democratic nature, in the principle of equal basic liberty. In doing so, I make some beginning steps toward illustrating the genuinely democratic nature of Rawls's arguments. Rawls believes that a few different arguments can be given for democratic institutions and that these arguments work together to support the value of democracy. In this paper, I focus on Rawls's arguments relating to self-respect. I focus on this set of arguments because they are among the strongest of Rawls's arguments for equal political liberty and its fair value.     

不同定义平行测验等值的群体不变性

群体不变性是等值的一个重要假设,即对不同的考生子群体等值函数一致。本研究对不同平行测验定义下线性等值的群体不变性进行了理论分析和模拟研究,模拟研究REMSD指标通过六种不同加权方式计算。结果显示,严格平行测验在信度较低时REMSD指标更大;子群体均值差异和信度差异对REMSD的影响存在明显的交互作用;REMSD指标在期望权重等权下的最大,在分数权重采用子群体比例加权最小。最后对结果进行了讨论,对REMSD权重使用及进一步研究给出了建议。     

Capturing age-group differences and developmental change with the BASC Parent Rating Scales

Estimation of age-group differences and intra-individual change across distinct developmental periods is often challenged by the use of age-appropriate (but non-parallel) measures. We present a short version of the Behavior Assessment System (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1998) Parent Rating Scales for Children (PRS-C) and Adolescents (PRS-A), which uses only their common-items to derive estimates of the initial constructs optimized for developmental studies. Measurement invariance of a three-factor model (Externalizing, Internalizing, Adaptive Skills) was tested across age-groups (161 mothers using PRS-C; 200 mothers using PRS-A) and over time (115 mothers using PRS-C at baseline and PRS-A five years later) with the original versus short PRS. Results indicated that the short PRS holds a sufficient level of invariance for a robust estimation of age-group differences and intra-individual change, as compared to the original PRS, which held only weak invariance leading to flawed developmental inferences. The importance of test–content parallelism for developmental studies is discussed.     

Review of Haydée Faimberg,The telescoping of Generations: Listening to the Narcissistic Links between Generations,London and New York,Routledge, 2005

Abstract

The V Nordic Conference of IFPS, Sweden January 23-24,1993

Activities of The Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society October 1992-June 1993     

Transposed-letter priming effect in Hebrew in the same–different task

We investigated the interaction between morphological structure and transposed-letter priming using the same–different task with Hebrew, a Semitic language in which morphology has been shown to play a key role in visual word recognition. In contrast to the results observed with lexical decision (e.g., Velan & Frost, 2009, 2011), a transposed-letter priming effect was observed irrespective of the morphological structure of the words. We take these results to suggest that morphological decomposition occurs only in the service of lexical access. We discuss further a unique feature of written Arabic, another Semitic language, to explain the apparent conflict between our findings and those reported by Perea, Abu Mallouh, García-Orza, and Carreiras (2010).