Planned Missing Data Designs for Spline Growth Models in Salivary Cortisol Research

Salivary cortisol is often used as an index of physiological and psychological stress in exercise science and psychoneuroendocrine research. A primary concern when designing research studies examining cortisol stems from the high cost of analysis. Planned missing data designs involve intentionally omitting a random subset of observations from data collection, reducing both the cost of data collection and participant burden. These designs have the potential to result in more efficient, cost-effective analyses with minimal power loss. Using salivary cortisol data from a previous study (Hogue, Fry, Fry, & Pressman, 2013 Hogue, C. M., Fry, M. D., Fry, A. C. and Pressman, S. D. 2013. The influence of a motivational climate intervention on participants’ salivary cortisol and psychological responses. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 35: 85–97. [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), this article examines statistical power and estimated costs of six different planned missing data designs using growth curve modeling. Results indicate that using a planned missing data design would have provided the same results at a lower cost relative to the traditional, complete data analysis of salivary cortisol.     

Accounting for Macroappraisal at Library and Archives Canada: From Disposition to Acquisition and Accessibility

This article explains the re-engineering of the government records disposition program at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in 2002–2004. The main point is that the framework of accountability has grown since the launch of the macroappraisal program (often referred to as the planned approach to disposition) at the (former) National Archives of Canada (NA) in 1990–1991. The opportunity for building an expanded framework of accountability presented itself after 2000 when a number of “push” (internal to the disposition program) and “pull” (external to the program) factors coalesced to challenge a reduced program. The reengineering exercise involved LAC government records archivists working together to develop the following new program documentation: Government-Wide Plan (GWP); Memorandum of Understanding (MOU); Appraisal Checklist; Terms and Conditions for the Transfer of Archival Records; Briefing Note for the Librarian and Archivist of Canada; and the Multi-Institutional Disposition Authority (MIDA) for Operational Case Files. Significant work also went into creating version three of the Records Disposition Authorities Control System (RDACS). As a result of reengineering the appraisal and disposition program, there is an accountability framework now in place for more than keep-destroy recommendations, one that has moved beyond disposition to include acquisition of and accessibility to the archival record.     

Effects of Item Wording on Sex Bias

This study examined the effects of gender-related item-wording changes on the performance of male and female examinees. Mathematics word problems and English language items were created in neuter, male, and female versions. Items were administered to randomly equivalent samples of about 300 high school juniors and seniors. Loglinear analysis was used to assess the impact of item gender and its interaction with examinee sex on the difficulty and discrimination of each item in each context. No items were found to have sex bias in either context. Mathematics items did not have different difficulty or discrimination in the three gender versions. Neither mathematics nor English items had different discrimination levels in the three gender-related versions. Some English items, however, were found to have different difficulty levels in the three gender-related versions. These difficulty differences were not systematic." none of the three gender versions appeared consistently more or less difficult than the others.     

“Social Work Is a Profession,Not an Ideology”: A Qualitative Analysis of Student Perceptions of Social Justice Discussions in the Classroom

The purpose of this article is to describe student perceptions of their experiences around social justice discussions in the social work classroom through a qualitative, grounded theory framework. Student responses from a qualitative section of a survey were analyzed and sorted into three categories: perceived discrimination, heightened self-awareness/self-assessment, and future social work practice. Each of these categories was derived from comparable multiple themes stemming from the student responses. A conceptual model resulting from the analysis suggests that students who shared experiences of perceived discrimination during classroom discussions could develop an enhanced self-awareness, which would result in an added empathy for clients in their future social work practice. Suggestions for teaching strategies and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Intrinsic integration in learning games and virtual instruction

This paper responds to a 2016 systematic literature review of the research on learning games by Ke (Educ Technol Res Dev 64(2):219–244, 2016). The review paper unpacked the idea of intrinsic integration in learning games, analyzing important emergent themes. The key ideas and the value of this review are discussed in the context of the recent shift to virtual instruction. The limitations, impact, and future implications are also described, with the perspective of this response focused on education theory. Intrinsic integration is an important consideration when designers create the next generation of digital games, and as researchers try to untangle the affordances of different educational games for student learning.