Psychometric properties of the triangulated version of the European Bullying Intervention Project Questionnaire: Prevalence across seven roles

This study created a Spanish triangulated version of the European Bullying Intervention Project Questionnaire and obtained indicators of its validity and reliability. This new tool allows researchers to triangulate and flexibly investigate the three main roles in school bullying, obtaining seven potential roles (pure victim, pure bully, pure bystander, bully/victim, victim/bystander, bully/bystander, and bully/victim/bystander). The sample was 2,068 adolescents and young adults aged 11–19 years (M_age = 14.2 ± 1.48 years old; 53.8% females). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit for the three-related-factor model and adequate reliability (ω > 0.91) in all dimensions. About 28.2% of the sample reported victimization; of whom only 2.9% were pure victims, 15.1% were victim/bystanders, and 9.8% were involved in all three roles (bully/victim/bystanders). Only 0.8% played the role of a pure bully, and 0.4% were bully/victims. The most prevalent profile was that of pure bystander (30%). These results are discussed in light of their importance for the interpretation of the prevalence of traditional bullying, and their implications for bullying assessments and interventions.     

Relevance of the SFU ReviewSP-NEG corpus annotated with the scope of negation for supervised polarity classification in Spanish

Up to now, negation is a challenging problem in the context of Sentiment Analysis. The study of negation implies the correct identification of negation markers, the scope and the interpretation of how negation affects the words that are within it, that is, whether it modifies their meaning or not and if so, whether it reverses, reduces or increments their polarity value. In addition, if we are interested in managing reviews in languages other than English, the issue becomes even more problematic due to the lack of resources. The present work shows the validity of the SFU Review_SP-NEG corpus, which we annotated at negation level, for training supervised polarity classification systems in Spanish. The assessment has involved the comparison of different supervised models. The results achieved show the validity of the corpus and allow us to state that the annotation of how negation affects the words that are within its scope is important. Therefore, we propose to add a new phase to tackle negation in polarity classification systems (phase iii): i) identification of negation cues, ii) determination of the scope of negation, iii) identification of how negation affects the words that are within its scope, and iv) polarity classification taking into account negation.     

The Cost of the Veil: Visual Communication Impacts of Hijab on News Judgments

Using disposition theory as a framework, this 2 (headscarf vs. no headscarf) by 2 (US citizen vs. refugee) experiment sought to elucidate the impact of visual and verbal cues in mediated messages on conclusions drawn from a television news package about a woman accused of consorting with a known terrorist group in the US, in terms of parochial empathy for and perceived innocence of the woman. Parochial empathy measures the difference between ingroup and outgroup empathy; higher levels indicate ingroup empathy is greater than outgroup empathy, meaning the individual’s empathy is very narrow in scope or “parochial.” Political identity was a measured independent variable. The data supported a model in which political identity was a significant moderator of the headscarf’s effect on parochial empathy, and that parochial empathy mediated the relationship between the manipulated and measured predictor variables on perceived innocence. Details of the relationships among variables are reported and the implications for theory and journalism practice are discussed.     

Is That Even Checkable? An Experimental Study in Identifying Checkable Statements in Political Discourse

The first step in journalistic fact-checking of political discourse is identifying whether statements contain “checkable facts” (i.e., not opinions). This randomized controlled experiment investigated how different demographic factors (age, gender, education, profession, and political affiliation) are associated with the ability to discern if statements contained checkable or noncheckable facts, as well as what impact training in identifying checkable facts can have on overall outcomes. A total of 3,357 participants identified checkable and noncheckable statements from a fictional political speech extract containing eight statements. Overall, participants were able to correctly identify an average of 69% of statements. Specific demographic factors (being male, young, and university educated) were positively associated with increased performance as well as working in professions that commonly analyze data, such as research. Participating in a short training session significantly increased participants’ performance. Initial political affiliation slightly reduces the ability to assess whether statements made by named politicians contained checkable facts.     

Analytics for learning design: A layered framework and tools

The field of learning design studies how to support teachers in devising suitable activities for their students to learn. The field of learning analytics explores how data about students' interactions can be used to increase the understanding of learning experiences. Despite its clear synergy, there is only limited and fragmented work exploring the active role that data analytics can play in supporting design for learning. This paper builds on previous research to propose a framework (analytics layers for learning design) that articulates three layers of data analytics—learning analytics, design analytics and community analytics—to support informed decision-making in learning design. Additionally, a set of tools and experiences are described to illustrate how the different data analytics perspectives proposed by the framework can support learning design processes.     

Consumer Awareness and Willingness to Pay for High-Pressure Processing of Ready-to-Eat Food

ABSTRACT:  Commercial, nonthermal processing of food, such as high hydrostatic-pressure processing (HPP), has increased. The safety and quality of foods produced by HPP has not been well communicated to the public. An online, nationwide consumer survey was implemented to assess awareness of alternative food processing technologies, consumer food safety attitudes and knowledge, and willingness to pay (WTP) for HPP products. The consumer survey was administered by Zoomerang™, an online survey clearinghouse. The survey was completed by 1204 adults. Frequencies and crosstabs were calculated on Zoomerang and SPSS used for one-way ANOVA and chi-square analyses. The survey assessed knowledge of HPP, attitudes about new food processing techniques, WTP for HPP foods and demographics. Overall, many demographic characteristics reflected U.S. census population. While traditional methods, that is, canning, freezing, and microwaving were all well recognized by over 80% of respondents, only 8% recognized HPP. Trends indicated an increase in age, education, and income reflected greater food safety knowledge. Regardless of demographics, no survey respondent exhibited knowledge mastery (80%). Given an explanation of HPP and its benefits, 39% of respondents indicated they would be WTP an additional cost, with higher income and education having the most impact. Majority of respondents indicated a WTP of $0.25 to $0.50 regardless of the value of the food product. More respondents were WTP slightly more for a more expensive product. New technologies often encounter a stumbling block in consumer acceptance and processing costs. A consumer's WTP, once they were informed, could encourage industry to look favorably on this technology.