Person-Centered Messages,Attributions of Responsibility,and the Willingness to Forgive Parental Infidelity

This study tested the degree to which person-centered disclosures about parental infidelity are associated with adult children’s attributions of responsibility for infidelity and willingness to forgive the offending parent. Participants included 299 adult children (aged 18–30) who were randomly assigned to hypothetical scenarios manipulating the person-centeredness of the offended parent’s disclosure and the biological sex of the offending parent. Although person-centered disclosures did not predict willingness to forgive, children’s attributions of responsibility for the offense did inversely predict their willingness to forgive. Meaningful differences in attributions of responsibility and willingness to forgive emerged on the basis of the sex of the offending parent. The results support attribution theory by showing that part of understanding third-party relational transgressions involves assessments of responsibility.     

Exploring strategic public relations management in China: current state and challenges

ABSTRACT

Applying four generic principles that are most relevant to strategic public relations management, this study examines the extent to which public relations is strategically managed in China. Public relations practitioners from four types of organizations participated an online survey (N?=?92) and an interview (N?=?20). It was found that public relations mainly contributes to routine operations rather than strategic policy-making. While typically given a direct reporting line with top management, public relations departments are not trusted to handle government relations and are considered inferior to the marketing department. Practitioners in the survey indicated the use of all four models to various degree in their organizations, despite that interviews revealed the difficulty to implement symmetrical communication model as compared to the other three models. In addition, practitioners were more proficient in fulfilling technician roles than managerial roles.     

Misconceptions Are “So Yesterday!”

At the close of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research conference in July 2012, one of the organizers made the comment: “Misconceptions are so yesterday.” Within the community of learning sciences, misconceptions are yesterday''s news, because the term has been aligned with eradication and/or replacement of conceptions, and our knowledge about how people learn has progressed past this idea. This essay provides an overview of the discussion within the learning sciences community surrounding the term “misconceptions” and how the education community''s thinking has evolved with respect to students’ conceptions. Using examples of students’ incorrect ideas about evolution and ecology, we show that students’ naïve ideas can provide the resources from which to build scientific understanding. We conclude by advocating that biology education researchers use one or more appropriate alternatives in place of the term misconception whenever possible.     

Identification and Evaluation of Local Item Dependencies in the Medical College Admissions Test

Measurement specialists routinely assume examinee responses to test items are independent of one another. However, previous research has shown that many contemporary tests contain item dependencies and not accounting for these dependencies leads to misleading estimates of item, test, and ability parameters. The goals of the study were (a) to review methods for detecting local item dependence (LID), (b) to discuss the use of testlets to account for LID in context-dependent item sets, (c) to apply LID detection methods and testlet-based item calibrations to data from a large-scale, high-stakes admissions test, and (d) to evaluate the results with respect to test score reliability and examinee proficiency estimation. Item dependencies were found in the test and these were due to test speededness or context dependence (related to passage structure). Also, the results highlight that steps taken to correct for the presence of LID and obtain less biased reliability estimates may impact on the estimation of examinee proficiency. The practical effects of the presence of LID on passage-based tests are discussed, as are issues regarding how to calibrate context-dependent item sets using item response theory.     

Developing Test Score Reports That Work: The Process and Best Practices for Effective Communication

Test scores matter these days. Test‐takers want to understand how they performed, and test score reports, particularly those for individual examinees, are the vehicles by which most people get the bulk of this information. Historically, score reports have not always met the examinees’ information or usability needs, but this is clearly changing for the better due to recent, much‐needed additions to the psychometric literature as well as improved efforts in reporting practices. This paper provides an overview of score reports from a development perspective, focusing on current practices and emerging efforts in content of reports as well as the process by which reports are designed, evaluated, and ultimately used to communicate with the public.     

Middle matching mining algorithm

1. Introduction With the increase in the amount of information, we feel the pressure from 搕he exploring information? and find that we are in a dilemma of having huge data but with little knowledge [1]. Data mining is an effective method to help us to get rid of the morass, and is a process of inferring knowledge from such huge data. A sequence is an ordered list of transactions (or itemsets), in which each transaction is a set of items. Typically there is a transaction-time associated with ea…     

The Effects of Storytelling and Story Reading on the Oral Language Complexity and Story Comprehension of Young Children

What began as a case study of intergenerational initiatives in university-based early childhood programs evolved into a comparative study of two different program implementation processes. Despite operating with the same goals, university partners, and resources, two early childhood centers pursued fundamentally different strategies for launching their intergenerational programs. One site followed what we call an explicit intervention with a set timeline and series of planned steps for finding, placing, and involving seniors in classroom activities. The other pursued what we call an emergent (or organic) strategy with no predetermined plan for finding senior volunteers and integrating them into classroom activities. Drawing on data collected from interviews with program staff and parents, and observations of intergenerational activities, this study serves to describe, compare, and contrast these alternative program initiation strategies. Both models are effective, but represent different approaches to valuing the contributions of older adults in the lives of young children.     

Discrepant performance on multiple‐choice and short answer assessments and the relation of performance to general scholastic aptitude

We conducted correlational and performance discrepancy analyses on exam and achievement data taken from students in three psychology courses. Across courses, the same findings emerged. First, only a small fraction of students consistently performed more strongly on one type of assessment (e.g., multiple‐choice) than on another (e.g., short answer). Second, students’ multiple‐choice performance, above and beyond their short answer performance, accounted for variation in students’ standing on achievement measures unrelated to psychology (including high school class standing, American College Test score, and college grade point average). In contrast, students’ short answer performance, above and beyond their multiple‐choice performance, did not account for variation in students’ standing on those achievement measures. Our findings support the continued use of multiple‐choice items to assess student learning.