Robust estimator design with an emphasis balance between performance and robustness

From a number of ML estimators (typically unbiased) of practical interest which include the variance for a Gaussian distribution, the standard deviation for a Laplace distribution, the variance for a Rayleigh distribution and a “spread parameter” for a Cauchy distribution, we design robust estimators according to an emphasis balance between normalized performance and normalized robustness. We measure performance with inverted MSE and robustness with a differential geometric approach.     

Correction to: Latent profiles of attitudes toward print and digital reading among adolescents

Reading and Writing - In the original publication, the article title was incorrectly published. The correct title has been given with this Correction.     

Self-Concept and Deafness: Factors Affecting the Development of Deaf Children

From the perspective of hearing-impaired individuals, deafness or hearing impairment means more than just the inability to hear. Deafness imposes on the individual in almost every aspect of their lives, educationally, socially and emotionally. How then does the hearing-impaired individual perceive himself in relation to others? This paper attempts to answer this question by looking into the literature on the psychosocial factors that might influence the self concept of hearing-impaired individuals.

Three factors are delineated; they are familial acceptance, attitudes of society, and communication. Implications for parents and teachers are suggested.     

Academic Self-Concept and Self-Efficacy: How Different Are They Really?

Academic motivation researchers sometimes struggle to decipher the distinctive characteristics of what appear to be highly analogous constructs. In this article, we discuss important similarities between self-concept and self-efficacy as well as some notable differences. Both constructs share many similarities such as centrality of perceived competence in construct definition; use of mastery experience, social comparison, and reflected appraisals as major information sources; and a domain-specific and multidimensional nature. Both predict motivation, emotion, and performance to varying degrees. However, there are also important differences. These differences include integration vs. separation of cognition and affect, heavily normative vs. goal-referenced evaluation of competence, aggregated vs. context-specific judgment, hierarchical vs. loosely hierarchical structure, past vs. future orientation, and relative temporal stability vs. malleability. We argue that self-efficacy acts as an active precursor of self-concept development and suggest that self-concept research separate out its multiple components and subprocesses and invest more effort toward making students less preoccupied with normative ability comparisons in school.     

Testing interest and self-efficacy as predictors of academic self-regulation and achievement

We examined whether individual interest, as an affective motivational variable, could predict academic self-regulation and achievement, above and beyond what academic self-efficacy predicted. We tested the relationships between academic self-efficacy, individual interest, grade goals, self-regulation, and achievement of Korean middle school students (N = 500) in four different subject areas. Consistent with previous findings, self-efficacy predicted achievement both directly and indirectly via grade goals. Self-efficacy also predicted self-regulation, but only when grade goals mediated the relationship. Supporting our hypothesis, individual interest functioned as a correlated yet independent and direct predictor of self-regulation. It also predicted achievement, but only when self-regulation mediated the relationship. We thus suggest that academic self-regulation could be encouraged through the promotion of two distinct motivational sources, academic self-efficacy and individual interest. We further suggest that the pathways linking individual interest to academic self-regulation and achievement may differ from those linking academic self-efficacy to the same variables.     

Self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, academic self-efficacy, and internet self-efficacy in web-based instruction

Effects of student motivation on performance in Web-based instruction (WBI) were examined. In particular, applicability of the self-efficacy theory to WBI contexts was tested. A total of 152 junior high school students in Seoul, Korea, participated in WBI during regular science classes. Participants completed motivational surveys before the onset of WBI and took the written and search tests at the end of WBI. Path analyses revealed that students' self-efficacy for self-regulated learning positively related to their academic self-efficacy, strategy use, and Internet self-efficacy. Academic self-efficacy predicted students' performance on the written test, which comprised problems on topics covered during the previous WBI sessions. Students' scores on the WBI search test were significantly and positively predicted by their self-efficacy in using the Internet. More interesting, students' academic self-efficacy beliefs were not able to predict their search test performance, whereas students' Internet self-efficacy beliefs were not able to predict their written test performance.This research is based on data collected as part of Ha-Jeen Choi's master's thesis completed at Ewha Womans University.The authors thank Steven Ross and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.     

Latent profiles of attitudes toward print and digital reading among adolescents

Reading and Writing - A growing body of research has highlighted the important role attitudes play for adolescent readers, but few have examined differences in attitudes across purposes and...     

SOCIAL PERSUASIONS BY TEACHERS AS A SOURCE OF STUDENT SELF‐EFFICACY: THE MODERATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED TEACHER CREDIBILITY

The primary purpose of this study was to ascertain whether the degree to which Korean middle school students perceived their teachers to be credible made a difference in the effectiveness of teachers’ persuasion as a source of students’ academic self‐efficacy. In the contexts of both general school learning and a specific subject of Korean language and literature, social persuasions by teachers were a significant predictor of student self‐efficacy. Students’ academic self‐efficacy, in turn, was a significant predictor of students’ expected final examination scores. Although perceived teacher credibility did not predict student self‐efficacy directly, it interacted significantly with teacher persuasion in the prediction of student self‐efficacy, as determined by the latent interaction analysis. Consistent with Bandura's assertion and our hypothesis, students reported stronger academic self‐efficacy as they perceived the teachers who delivered the social persuasion to be more credible.     

Designing a business model for financial products for cultural heritage in the Korean market

There are many contingent valuation (CV) studies to estimate the economic benefits of cultural heritage, but few provided advice on the design of financial products for cultural heritage assets. This paper conducted conjoint and willingness-to-pay (WTP) analyses for providing the design implication of these financial products. We calculated WTP for each attribute. The result of conjoint analysis shows that people prefer a short period of investment, high-expected rate of return and small amount of money invested. Only the amount invested and the rate of return on investment are significant to estimate WTP for these financial products.