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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Psychological methodology
Validity is a clear, substantive introduction to the two most fundamental aspects of defensible testing practice: understanding test score meaning and justifying test score use. Driven by evidence-based and consensus-grounded measurement theory, principles, and terminology, this book addresses the most common questions of applied validation, the quality of test information, and the usefulness of test results. Concise yet comprehensive, this volume's integrated framework is ideal for graduate courses on assessment, testing, psychometrics, and research methods as well as for credentialing organizations, licensure and certification entities, education agencies, and test publishers.
Polls are conducted every day all around the world for almost everything (especially during elections). But not every poll is a good one. A lot depends on the type of questions asked, how they are asked and whether the sample used is truly representative. And these are not the only aspects of a poll that should be checked. So how does one separate the chaff from the wheat? That's where Understanding Public Opinion Polls comes in. Written by a well-known author with over thirty years of experience, the book is built around a checklist for polls that describes the various aspects of polls to pay attention to if one intends to use its results. By comprehensively answering the questions in the checklist, a good idea of the quality of the poll is obtained. Features: Provides readers with a deeper understanding of practical and theoretical aspects of opinion polls while assuming no background in mathematics or statistics Shows how to determine if a poll is good or bad Provides a historical perspective and includes examples from real polls Gives special attention to online and election polls The book gives an overview of many aspects of polls - questionnaire design, sample selection, estimation, margins of error, nonresponse and weighting. It is essential reading for those who want to gain a better understanding of the ins and outs of polling including those who are confronted with polls in their daily life or work or those who need to learn how to conduct their own polls.
Researchers often have difficulties collecting enough data to test their hypotheses, either because target groups are small or hard to access, or because data collection entails prohibitive costs. Such obstacles may result in data sets that are too small for the complexity of the statistical model needed to answer the research question. This unique book provides guidelines and tools for implementing solutions to issues that arise in small sample research. Each chapter illustrates statistical methods that allow researchers to apply the optimal statistical model for their research question when the sample is too small. This essential book will enable social and behavioral science researchers to test their hypotheses even when the statistical model required for answering their research question is too complex for the sample sizes they can collect. The statistical models in the book range from the estimation of a population mean to models with latent variables and nested observations, and solutions include both classical and Bayesian methods. All proposed solutions are described in steps researchers can implement with their own data and are accompanied with annotated syntax in R. The methods described in this book will be useful for researchers across the social and behavioral sciences, ranging from medical sciences and epidemiology to psychology, marketing, and economics.
This third edition apprises users of the MMPI-2/MMPI-2-Restructured Form (RF) for the ever-changing landscape of this dynamic personality/psychopathology instrument and its expanding utility in a variety of contexts. Two new chapters addressing the RC scales and the MMPI-2-RF are included in this updated text. Additionally, over 450 new references have been incorporated into the book, with information gathered and organized for practical clinical and forensic applications. The codetype interpretation chapter has expanded its sections with more in-depth feedback information and treatment considerations for clinicians to help in facilitating the formulation of treatment recommendations and strengthening therapeutic relationships with their clients. A number of special scales with clinical and forensic applications are also covered in this edition. An important section has been added addressing the MMPI and suicide. This new edition is a must-have resource that will inform and guide users of the MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF in their daily practices, and assist researchers in conceptualizing the operating characteristics and configural relationships among the various scales and indices that comprise this instrument. From simple single scale interpretation to complex configural relationships, this text addresses a broad bandwidth of interpretive information designed for text users' at all levels of sophistication.
Traditional theories of associative learning have found no place for the possibility that an individual's perception of events might change as a result of experience. Evidence for the reality of perceptual learning has come from procedures unlike those studied by learning theorists. The work reviewed in this book shows that learned changes in perceptual organization can in fact be demonstrated, even in experiments using procedures (such as conditioning and simple discrimination learning) which form the basis of associative theories. These results come from procedures that have been the focus of detailed theoretical and empirical analysis; and from this analysis emerges an outline of the mechanisms responsible. Some of these are associative, others require the addition of nonassociative mechanisms to the traditional theory. The result is an extended version of associative theory which, it is argued, will be relevant not only to the experimental procedures discussed in this book but to the entire range of instances of perceptual learning. For psychologists interested in the basic mechanisms of conditioning, perception, and learning, this volume provides an up-to-date, critical review of the field.
*Authoritative reference, updated and expanded; 55% new material includes new topics, such as neuroscience, social media, social inequality, and novel interventions. *Cutting-edge coverage of perennial topics, including aggression, withdrawal, psychopathology, friendships, romance, and the influence of families and schools. *Interdisciplinary contributors include experts from developmental and clinical psychology, family studies, and sociology. *Competing titles are dated and less comprehensive.
Carolyn Ellis is a prominent writer in the move toward personal, reflexive writing as an approach to academic research. In addition to her landmark books Final Negotiations and The Ethnographic I, she has authored numerous stories that demonstrate the emotional power and academic value of autoethnography. Now issued as a Routledge Education Classic Edition, Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work collects a dozen of Ellis's stories-about the loss of her husband, brother and mother; of growing up in small town Virginia; about the ethical work of the ethnographer; and about emotionally charged life issues such as abortion, caregiving, and love. Atop these captivating stories, she adds the component of meta-autoethography-a layering of new interpretations, reflections, and vignettes to her older work. A new preface text by the author reflects on the subsequent developments in the author's life and her vision for autoethnography since the book's original publication. Demonstrating Carolyn's extensive contribution to autoethnographic scholarship, this new edition offers compelling ideas and stories for qualitative researchers and a student-friendly text for courses.
This interdisciplinary text is the first to address the many questions and controversies surrounding the use of children as research subjects. Experts in the field of biomedical and behavioural research with children consider the issues in terms of biomedical science, child psychology, ethics, and the law, providing a careful balance between individual and societal benefits. This practical guide will be invaluable to everyone involved in performing or reviewing research involving children.
This volume constitutes the proceedings of the third biennial conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology, held in Arnhem, the Netherlands, April 17-21, 1989. Fifty-six papers were presented during the four days of the conference, including an invited address by Professor A. D. de Groot, and seven papers composing two plenary sessions, four on the con tribution of history to theory, and three on theoretical alternatives for contem porary psychology. Of these, 46 papers are presented in the proceedings; all of which suffered editorial changes and, with the exception of the invited ad dress, were required to meet a 15 page restriction on length. The editors gratefully acknowledge John Mills, Leendert Mos, and Hank Starn for their invaluable editorial assistance. The papers included here are presented without discussants' commen taries. (Over 125 psychologists participated at the conference.) While the papers are representative of the scope of topics covered at the conference, the hours of formal and informal discussions must, unfortunately, be left to the reader's imagination. We encourage the reader to attend one of our next conferences, planned biennially, and alternately, in North America (1991) and Europe (1993)."
A collection of papers on the Oedipus complex, divided into three parts: theory, practice and supervision. The contributors, who include Joyce McDougall, Hanna Segal, Otto Kernberg and Leon Grinberg, invite the reader to explore with them the processes affecting the therapist's mind - and, occasionally his body - during psychoanalytic therapy, and the reasons why the therapist thinks, feels, and reacts in a particular way. The full significance of these processes, referred to as "counter-transference" since Freud's time, has recently been recognized, resulting in the therapist's use of additional resources so that he or she can understand and help the patient more effectively. In the 1950s and 1960s, Paula Heimann and Heinrich Racker, following on Freud's own observations, made important contributions to the study of the countertransference, considerably enlarging upon the concept and re-evaluating the nature of the psychoanalytic therapeutic relationship as a result.
Adapting Psychological Tests and Measurement Instruments for Cross-Cultural Research provides an easy-to-read overview of the methodological issues and best practices for cross-cultural adaptation of psychological instruments. Although the development of cross-cultural test adaption methodology has advanced in recent years, the discussion is often pitched at an expert level and requires an advanced knowledge of statistics, psychometrics and scientific methodology. This book, however, introduces the history and concepts of cross-cultural psychometrics in a pedagogic and simple manner. It evaluates key ethical, cultural, methodological and legal issues in cross-cultural psychometrics and provides a guide to test adaptation, data analysis and interpretation. Written in an accessible manner, this book builds an understanding of the methodological, ethical and legal complexities of cross-cultural test adaptation and presents methods for test adaptation, including the basic statistical procedures for evaluating the equivalence of test versions. It would be the ideal companion for undergraduate students and those new to psychometrics.
Designing a research project is possibly the most difficult task a dissertation writer faces. It is fraught with uncertainty: what is the best subject? What is the best method? For every answer found, there are often multiple subsequent questions, so it's easy to get lost in theoretical debates and buried under a mountain of literature. This book looks at literature review in the process of research design, and how to develop a research practice that will build skills in reading and writing about research literature-skills that remain valuable in both academic and professional careers. Literature review is approached as a process of engaging with the discourse of scholarly communities that will help graduate researchers refine, define, and express their own scholarly vision and voice. This orientation on research as an exploratory practice, rather than merely a series of predetermined steps in a systematic method, allows the researcher to deal with the uncertainties and changes that come with learning new ideas and new perspectives. The focus on the practical elements of research design makes this book an invaluable resource for graduate students writing dissertations. Practicing research allows room for experiment, error, and learning, ultimately helping graduate researchers use the literature effectively to build a solid scholarly foundation for their dissertation research project.
Business, academia, industry, and the military require well trained personnel to function in highly complex working environments. To reduce high training costs and to improve the effectiveness of training, training system developers often use sophisticated training media such as, simulators, videodisks, and computer-based instruction. The designers of these training media are continually striving to provide maximum training effectiveness at minimum cost. Although literature is available on the implementation and use of specific training media, there is little guidance on a major feature that is central to these media. All of these media present the learner with an interactive simulation of the real world. Effective training system design can be facilitated if the requirements of the real-world task are properly included in training. A conceptual bridge is necessary to link these actual task requirements to the characteristics of the training system. This book provides such a conceptual bridge. The need for improved training is critical in the area of equipment operation, maintenance, and decision making tasks. For example, the importance of improved operator training in the nuclear power industry has become paramount since the Three Mile Island accident and the more serious accident at the Chernobyl reactor in the U. S. S. R. Technology, such as the availability and power of computers, offers a wider variety of training options, but requires additional training system design decisions
The Four Domains of Mental Illness presents an authentic and valid alternative to the DSM-5, which author Rene J. Muller argues has resulted in many patients being incorrectly diagnosed and wrongly medicated. Dr. Muller points out where the DSM-5 is mistaken and offers a guide to diagnosis based on the psychobiology of psychiatrist Adolf Meyer and the insights of existential philosophy and psychiatry. His model identifies the phenomena of the mental illnesses that clinicians most often see, which are characterized by identifying their structure, or partial structure. Using the FDMI approach, clinicians can grasp how each mental illness is an aberration of Martin Heidegger's being-in-the-world.
This book provides an overview of cutting-edge methods currently being used in cognitive psychology, which are likely to appear with increasing frequency in coming years. Once built around univariate parametric statistics, cognitive psychology courses now seem deficient without some contact with methods for signal processing, spatial statistics, and machine learning. There are also important changes in analyses of behavioral data (e.g., hierarchical modeling and Bayesian inference) and there is the obvious change wrought by the advancement of functional imaging. This book begins by discussing the evidence of this rapid change, for example the movement between using traditional analyses of variance to multi-level mixed models, in psycholinguistics. It then goes on to discuss the methods for analyses of physiological measurements, and how these methods provide insights into cognitive processing. New Methods in Cognitive Psychology provides senior undergraduates, graduates and researchers with cutting-edge overviews of new and emerging topics, and the very latest in theory and research for the more established topics.
The first edition of Personality Assessment provided an overview of the most popular self-report and performance-based personality assessment instruments. The chapter authors were key members in creating or developing the research base for the eight test instruments covered in the book. The text was geared with graduate-level clinical, school, and counseling psychology courses in mind. While still retaining all the attractive features of the first edition, this revision will reflect the advances in the field since 2008. Chapter contributors updated and expanded on reliability and validity data, clinical utility, multicultural considerations, and implications for therapeutic assessment. Another distinctive feature of this second edition is a companion website that features ancillary materials such as PowerPoints and test banks.
This is the sixth edition of a popular textbook on multivariate analysis. Well-regarded for its practical and accessible approach, with excellent examples and good guidance on computing, the book is particularly popular for teaching outside statistics, i.e. in epidemiology, social science, business, etc. The sixth edition has been updated with a new chapter on data visualization, a distinction made between exploratory and confirmatory analyses and a new section on generalized estimating equations and many new updates throughout. This new edition will enable the book to continue as one of the leading textbooks in the area, particularly for non-statisticians. Key Features: Provides a comprehensive, practical and accessible introduction to multivariate analysis. Keeps mathematical details to a minimum, so particularly geared toward a non-statistical audience. Includes lots of detailed worked examples, guidance on computing, and exercises. Updated with a new chapter on data visualization.
From pioneering leaders in the field, this is the first book to provide a solid foundation for three major stakeholder involvement approaches: collaborative, participatory, and empowerment evaluation. Highlighting differences among the approaches, the authors focus on the role of the evaluator, who may be in charge of the evaluation, share control, or serve as a "critical friend," leaving stakeholders in control. Practitioners are guided to select and implement the most appropriate framework for the purpose and scope of a given evaluation and the needs of community members and funders. For each approach, a chapter on essential features is followed by two chapters presenting actual sample evaluations--for example, early childhood and community health initiatives, an aquarium, a project with Google, and more. The concluding chapter discusses similarities and circumstances in which the approaches can be combined.
In this book I pursue three goals. The first is to describe what has been learned about human freedom through psychological research. The second is to provide a conceptual and methodological critique of the large body of that research which has been conducted within the framework of a positivist natural science ex perimental social psychology. My third goal is to offer a contrasting human science approach to the study of human freedom and to illustrate its use in empirical study. For more than twenty years psychologists have inves tigated the conditions under which people are seen to be free, the conditions under which they report feeling free, the psychological consequences of interference with be havioural freedoms, and to a lesser extent, how it feels to feel free. Empirical fmdings on each of these facets of human freedom have arisen in quite separate research traditions, and they are brought together here for the first time. During the same twenty years, a general critique of the dominant positivist natural science approach to complex human phenomena has been growing. Although it has escalated recently, this critique has fIrm roots that go back to the turn of the century. I review this general critique and apply it specifically to the study of human freedom - surely a complex human phenomenon, more complex, ambiguous, and paradoxical than most of us im agine."
Understanding how our brains and bodies actually work is a powerful tool in mitigating the anxiety generated by unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms that we all may experience from time to time. Here, Robert Scaer unravels the complexities of the brain-body connection, equipping all those who are in distress with a plausible explanation for how they feel. Making the science accessible, he outlines the core neurobiological concepts underlying the brain-body interface and explains why physical and emotional symptoms of stress and trauma occur. He explains why "feelings" represent physical sensations that inform us about the nature of our brain-body conflicts. He also offers practical, easy-to-implement strategies for strengthening motor skills, learning to listen to our gut to gauge our feelings, attuning to the present, and restoring personal boundaries to relieve symptoms and navigate a path to recovery.
This volume constitutes the proceedings of the second biannual conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology (see Epilogue) held in Banff, Alberta, Canada, April 20-25, 1987. Thirty-nine papers were presented during the four days of the conference including an invited address by Kenneth Gergen. Unfortunately, even after severely restricting the length of the written papers, the required limitation on printed space permitted only 34 of these to be included in these proceed ings. While most of the papers required editorial adjustment, the authors had final word on style and content. The classification of conference papers tends to be somewhat arbi trary' but we decided to structure the chapters under four headings: phi losophy, metatheory, methodology, and theory. By philosophy we refer primarily to issues in the philosophy of science as these pertain to the dis cipline of psychology. Metatheory refers to theory, drawing on the philo sophy of science and having implications for methodology, about psycho logical theories. Methodology refers to both theory of inquiry and specif ic methods of investigation as these derive from philosophical and meta theoretical considerations. By theory we refer to both analyses of the foundations of extant theory, including historical and sociological ana lyses, and the advancement of substantive theory."
Proposing Empirical Research: A Guide to the Fundamentals provides step-by-step instructions for students who will be writing their first research proposal in the social and behavioral sciences and using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The structure of the book enables students to work independently with confidence while writing the first drafts of their proposals. Each major section is divided into short topics and for each topic, students are asked to complete an exercise that leads them toward the goal of preparing a proposal. Numerous illustrative examples throughout the book make the recommendations for proposal writing come alive. In addition, the 10 model proposals provided at the end of the book illustrate proposal writing and provide material for classroom discussions. New to the Sixth Edition: Updates throughout to reflect research and learning in the digital/online environment, e.g., online surveys, digital organization tools, digital recruitment methods for research, and digital databases, records, and archives. Discussion of qualitative methods. Updated references, model proposals, end of chapter exercises etc. Proposing Empirical Research is ideal for use in research methods classes where students write a proposal as a term project, thesis/dissertation preparation classes, senior research seminars where proposing and conducting research is a culminating undergraduate activity, and any graduate-level seminar in which the instructor wants to incorporate a project that will engage students in critical thinking about the content area.
Engaging and accessible, this book teaches readers how to use inferential statistical thinking to check their assumptions, assess evidence about their beliefs, and avoid overinterpreting results that may look more promising than they really are. It provides step-by-step guidance for using both classical (frequentist) and Bayesian approaches to inference. Statistical techniques covered side by side from both frequentist and Bayesian approaches include hypothesis testing, replication, analysis of variance, calculation of effect sizes, regression, time series analysis, and more. Students also get a complete introduction to the open-source R programming language and its key packages. Throughout the text, simple commands in R demonstrate essential data analysis skills using real-data examples. The companion website provides annotated R code for the book's examples, in-class exercises, supplemental reading lists, and links to online videos, interactive materials, and other resources. Pedagogical Features *Playful, conversational style and gradual approach; suitable for students without strong math backgrounds. *End-of-chapter exercises based on real data supplied in the free R package. *Technical explanation and equation/output boxes. *Appendices on how to install R and work with the sample datasets. |
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