Quantitative Research Attitudes and Research Training Perceptions Among Master's‐Level Students

This study explored master's‐level counseling students' (N = 804) perceptions of training in the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs ( 2009 ) Research and Program Evaluation standard, and their attitudes toward quantitative research. Training perceptions and quantitative research attitudes were low to moderate, with no statistical differences across program accreditation or specialty area. Implications and possibilities for future research are discussed.     

A SYSTEMATIC FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING TREATMENT INTEGRITY IN SCHOOL SETTINGS

School psychologists are tasked with ensuring treatment integrity because the level of intervention implementation affects decisions about student progress. Treatment integrity includes multiple dimensions that may impact the effectiveness of an intervention including adherence, dosage, quality, and engagement. Unfortunately, treatment integrity is not routinely monitored in consultation. A systematic framework is needed to better prepare practitioners to assess, analyze, and intervene when there are treatment integrity failures. A framework for monitoring and improving multiple dimensions of treatment integrity in natural settings is proposed to provide guidance to practitioners through two phases. The first phase focuses on improving initial treatment integrity and the second phase outlines a problem‐solving process for improving treatment integrity.     

Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Portuguese Version of the Life Skills Scale for Sport

ABSTRACT

This research adapted the Life Skills Scale for Sport (LSSS) into Portuguese and provided evidence for its construct validity. Study 1 included four translators and five academics who developed a Portuguese version of the LSSS (P-LSSS). During this study, evidence for the content and substantive aspects of construct validity was provided using an expert panel and 25 sports participants. Study 2 included 413 participants that completed the P-LSSS. Within this study, evidence for the structural aspect of construct validity was provided via factor analyses. Study 3 included 134 participants who completed the P-LSSS and a measure of motivation. This study provided evidence for the external aspect of construct validity, with results showing more self-determined motivation had positive relationships with participant’s life skills development. Overall, our findings provided evidence for the construct validity of P-LSSS scores. Researchers and practitioners can use the P-LSSS to assess life skills development within sports participants.     

Fantasy,Pragmatism and Journalistic Socialisation: UK Journalism Students’ Aspirations and Motivations

ABSTRACT

Despite the sustained growth in journalism as a choice of degree path for young people, our understanding of students’ aspirations and motivations remains relatively underdeveloped. At the same time, journalism careers appear increasingly uncertain, as the industry responds to digitalisation and convergence. In this mixed-methods study – employing 35 interviews and a survey of 837 UK journalism students – we ask what areas of journalism do students aspire towards, how do they feel about their future career prospects, and what is motivating them to study journalism in the first place? We find that intrinsic motivations (calling and talent, dynamic job) prevail over public service ones, with students drawn to soft news beats over hard news. Aspirations are also strikingly gendered, opening up questions of journalism education in this process. We also find that while students articulate an aspirational career in respected media outlets, they are pragmatic about their immediate career prospects. Here, journalism education appears to play a significant role in socialising students towards careers beyond journalism. Findings are discussed in the light of ongoing debates around journalistic socialisation and the future of journalism.     

A Critical Look into the Beuk Standard-Setting Method

One commonly used compromise standard-setting method is the Beuk (1984) method. A key assumption of the Beuk method is that the emphasis given to the pass rate and the percent correct ratings should be proportional to the extent that the panelists agree on their ratings. However, whether the slope of Beuk line reflects the emphasis that panelists believe should be assigned to the pass rate and the percentage correct ratings has not be fully tested. In this article, I evaluate this critical assumption of the Beuk method by asking panelists to assign importance weights to their percentage correct and pass rate judgments. I show that in several cases that the emphasis suggested by the Beuk slope is noticeably different from what one would expect and is inconsistent with importance weight ratings. I also suggest two ways that the importance weights can be used to calculate alternate cut scores, and I show that one of the ways of calculating cut scores using the importance weights leads to larger potential differences in cut score estimates. I suggest that practitioners should consider collecting importance weights when the Beuk method is used for determining cut scores.     

Usage Comparison between an English-Language and a French-Language E-Monograph Collection in a Bilingual Canadian University

Abstract

This article reports the results of a quantitative and systematic analysis comparing usage rates between English-language and French-language e-monograph titles at Laurentian University, Canada. Full-text viewings were collected as usage metrics. English-language e-monographs exhibited medium strength linear relationships between collection size and usage. On the other hand, French-language e-monographs exhibited weak linear relationships between collection size and usage. The French-language e-monograph collection experienced a higher rate of full-text use, relative to size. The cost-per-viewing ratio for the English-language e-monograph collection was higher than those that calculated for the French-language collection.