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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Psychological methodology > Psychological testing & measurement
Constructing Measures introduces a way to understand the advantages and disadvantages of measurement instruments. It explains the ways to use such instruments, and how to apply these methods to develop new instruments or adapt old ones, based on item response modeling and construct references. Now in its second edition, this book focuses on the steps taken while constructing an instrument, and breaks down the "building blocks" that make up an instrument-the construct map, the design plan for the items, the outcome space, and the statistical measurement model. The material covers a variety of item formats, including multiple-choice, open-ended, and performance items, projects, portfolios, Likert and Guttman items, behavioral observations, and interview protocols. Each chapter includes an overview of the key concepts, related resources for further investigation, and exercises and activities. A variety of examples from the behavioral and social sciences and education-including achievement and performance testing, attitude measures, health measures, and general sociological scales-demonstrate the application of the material. Accompanying downloadable resources feature control files, output, and a data set to allow readers to compute the text's exercises and create new analyses and case archives based on the book's examples so the reader can work through the entire development of an instrument. New to this edition are additional example contexts including a cognitive/achievement example, an attitude example, and a behavioral example; new concentrations on specific measurement issues and practices such as standard-setting, computer-delivery and reporting, and going beyond the Likert response format; and updated online resource with new materials, such as selected research articles with data sets and teaching resources like a syllabus and PowerPoint slides. Constructing Measures is an invaluable text for undergraduate and graduate courses on item, test, or instrument development; measurement; item response theory; or Rasch analysis taught in a variety of departments including education, statistics, and psychology. The book also appeals to practitioners who develop instruments, including industrial/organizational, educational, and school psychologists; health outcomes researchers; program evaluators; and sociological measurers.
Audiences are not what they used to be. Munching crisps or snapping selfies, chatting loudly or charging phones onstage - bad behaviour in theatre is apparently on the rise. And lately some spectators have begun to fight back... The Reasonable Audience explores the recent trend of 'theatre etiquette': an audience-led crusade to bring 'manners and respect' back to the auditorium. This comes at a time when, around the world, arts institutions are working to balance the traditional pleasures of receptive quietness with the need to foster more inclusive experiences. Through investigating the rhetorics of morality underpinning both sides of the argument, this book examines how models of 'good' and 'bad' spectatorship are constructed and legitimised. Is theatre etiquette actually snobbish? Are audiences really more selfish? Who gets to decide what counts as 'reasonable' within public space?Using theatre etiquette to explore wider issues of social participation, cultural exclusion, and the politics of identity, Kirsty Sedgman asks what it means to police the behaviour of others.
A Unique Resource for a State-of-the-Art Practice Presented by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, this is the first and only work to offer readers a comprehensive look at individual psychological assessment as currently practiced in business environments. Here, you will examine the best methods and techniques now in use. You will see how assessment is being used to alter organizational cultures and achieve specific business goals. You will discover a framework you can use to make your own practice state-of-the-art. And you will benefit from thought-provoking discussions on issues vital to the field's continued success as well as informed predictions for its future. All of which makes this an essential resource any person concerned with individual psychological assessment should possess.
During the last several years social scientists have increasingly recognized the impact of globalization on research and practice. It is imperative that psychology as a field be cognizant of this ongoing shift and that psychologists begin to integrate their various models, theories, and perspectives into a global curriculum. Sponsored by the International Testing Commission, The ITC Handbook of International Testing and Assessment is dedicated to the advancement of theory, research, and practice in the area of international testing and assessment in psychology, education, counseling, organizational behavior, human resource management, and related disciplines. Bringing together international contributors from a range of disciplines, each chapter provides a review of testing and assessment research and practices around the world as well as a discussion of conceptual and methodological challenges to help advance the field. As The ITC Handbook, it also provides a historical perspective of international testing, the development of the ITC, and its guidelines. Recognizing that cultural and international contexts are essential to a true and accurate psychology, the authors describe how cultural, economic, political, and social factors in different countries frame the science and practice of testing and assessment. The ITC Handbook is a must-have resource for testing professionals and graduate students from psychology and related disciplines.
This volume addresses an important problem in social scientific research on global religions and spirituality: How to evaluate the role of diverse religious and spiritual (R/S) beliefs and practices within the rapid evolution of spiritual globalization and diversification trends. The book examines this question by bringing together a panel of international scholars including psychologists, sociologists, and researchers in religious studies, public health, medicine, and social work. The content includes chapters describing innovative concepts of post-Christian spirituality, Eastern forms of meditation, afterlife beliefs associated with the three dominant cultural legacies, various non-religious worldviews, spiritual Jihad, and secular and religious reverence. The book also covers such important themes as spiritual well-being, faith, struggle, meaning making, modeling, and support, as well as mysticism and using prayer to cope with existential crises. This book advances the understanding of the role of R/S across different faiths and cultural systems, including both Western and non-Western ones, and enriches the mainstream of psychological sciences and practices. It appeals to students, educators, researchers, and clinicians in multiple related fields and disciplines.
This book introduces Unitary Developmental Theory (UDT) to the field of organization development. The second of two volumes, it introduces the UDT model and examines its application to organization development and change management. The book presents UDT comprising seven developmental levels, showing how using its methodical progression can help to avoid issues such as unsustainable growth and change failure while examining how the model improves collaboration, digital transformation, change management and team development. It shows how the model clinically transforms concepts such as culture which is often cited as the cause of failure for change, re-defining it as habituated maturation stage and simplifying culture change accordingly. This book is designed to accompany Volume 1 which details the psychology of the model and its equal applicability to mental-health recovery. Showing how UDT can be used as an overarching model to optimize organization development, this book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars and postgraduate students from the fields of organizational psychology, organization development and change management.
This revision guide book covers the major areas of Statistical Analysis covered in Undergraduate Psychology. The focus is on the practical application of statistics to assignments and assessments that you may encounter. To ensure that you are able to apply statistics, particular attention is given to the key concepts you need to understand in order to be able to use statistics correctly; the process you need to follow in order to choose the correct statistic; and what you need to do to present and interpret your statistics correctly. The coverage of the individual tests focus on pragmatic issues, such as when the test is appropriate, how to format data correctly and what to do when you don't get the data you expect. You are directed to further readings for the mathematical underpinnings of the statistical tests. Examples and case studies are used throughout, so you can see the application of statistics to problems that are similar to those you are likely to encounter. Features focused on critical thinking, practical applications and key research will offer additional pointers for you in your revision process/exam preparation. A companion website provides supporting resources for self testing, exam practice, answers to questions in the book, and links to further resources.
Assessing Competencies for Social and Emotional Learning explores the conceptualization, development, and application of assessments of competencies and contextual factors related to social and emotional learning (SEL). As programs designed to teach students social and emotional competencies are being adopted at an ever-increasing rate, new measurements are needed to understand their impact on student attitudes, behaviors, and academic performance. This book integrates standards of fairness, reliability, and validity, and lessons learned from personality and attitude assessment to facilitate the principled development and use of SEL assessments. Education professionals, assessment developers, and researchers will be better prepared to systematically develop and evaluate measures of social and emotional competencies.
Includes special applications for TA with diverse populations Incorporates case examples and illustrations with test data, sample feedback letter, and call-boxes Guides reader step-by-step through all the stages of TA including the assessor's thinking processes and conceptualizations Includes handouts
* Provides much-needed perspective on parenting in low- and middle-income countries, where the majority of parenting research still focuses on WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) countries. * Compares data about four specific domains of parenting (Caregiving, Discipline, Environment and Public Health) in relation to development in children 1-5 years of age in more than 50 countries, advancing knowledge of both parenting and child development in diverse LMIC contexts. * The book is timely and particularly needed as researchers and practitioners increasingly emphasize the importance of understanding how parenting and child development are influenced by cultural contexts
This edited collection commemorates the career of Dr. S. Lynne Stokes by highlighting recent advances in her areas of research interest, emphasizing practical applications and future directions. It serves as a collective effort of leading statistical scientists who work at the cutting edge in statistical sampling. S. Lynne Stokes is Professor of Statistical Science and Director of the Data Science Institute at Southern Methodist University, and Senior Fellow at the National Institute of Statistical Sciences. She has enjoyed a distinguished research career, making fundamental contributions to a variety of fields in statistical sampling. Reflecting on Professor Stokes' main areas of research, this volume is structured into three main parts: I. ranked-set sampling, judgment post-stratified sampling, and capture-recapture methods II. nonsampling errors in statistical sampling III. educational and behavioral statistics. This collection will be of interest to researchers, advanced students, and professionals in the public and private sectors who would like to learn more about latest advancements in statistical sampling, particularly those who work in educational and behavioral statistics.
-Includes helpful forms and templates that readers can access online -Includes coverage of psychological testing in new areas of outpatient practice -Provides detailed case examples
Clear presentation of the underlying theory Practical introduction to fitting Rasch models by means of the freely available statistical software R
Accessible to users with relatively little experience with R programming Reproducible data analysis examples that can be modified to accommodate users' own data Accompanying e-book website with links to additional resources and R code updates as needed Features dichotomous and polytomous (rating scale) Rasch models that can be applied to data from a wide range of disciplines
Focused on the interpersonal aspects of internal evaluation in non-profit organisations, this book presents practice-based discussions centred on six key topics identified through the authors' experience as evaluation practitioners. Internal Evaluation in Non-Profit Organisations: Practitioner Perspectives on Theory, Research, and Practice is not a step-by-step how-to guide; instead, each chapter unpacks an aspect of internal evaluation in non-profits that is paid insufficient heed in the existing literature. Written by and for internal evaluation practitioners, the book contains a plethora of practical strategies and critical analysis of thought-provoking topics that are of particular interest and importance to internal evaluators in non-profit settings. The authors understand the pressures facing practitioners and non-profit organisations and share their insights around improving evaluation's ability to be efficient, embedded, useful, and meaningful. This book will be of interest to researchers, scholars, and students focusing on non-profit management and will hold specific value for internal evaluators who want to harness their unique and influential position to help organisations achieve their goals. Further, this book is ideal for individuals wanting to think critically about evaluation and improve evaluation utilisation by developing their professional capability, building teamwork skills, using informal everyday data, incorporating theory, and developing fruitful relationships with external evaluators.
Whereas the diagnosis, explanation, and treatment of physical illness are scientifically sound, this is not true of psychiatric care of mental disorder. Depression, the #1 psychiatric diagnosis, illustrates this failure and it is the subject of Grifting Depression: Psychiatry's Failure as a Medical Science. Psychiatry's current form of medicalization began in 1980 with publication of DSM-III, the diagnostic manual that became the basis for the chemical imbalance theory, psychiatry's explanation for depression, and for reliance on antidepressant drugs to treat depression, "revolutionizing psychiatric care." DSM-III became the model for all the DSM manuals that followed. However, unlike other medical diagnostic manuals, the DSM fails to meet scientific and medical standards of reliability and validity. The chemical imbalance theory is based on research that violates basic tenets of the scientific method. Tests of the theory contradict it. In addition, tests of treatment effectiveness find antidepressant drugs to be no better than placebo. Studies show that the benefit attributed to antidepressant drugs is a placebo effect, but unlike placebos, the chemicals in these drugs are harmful to many. Research strongly supports an alternative theory, a behavioral explanation (psychological rather than biological) for most of the mental disorders listed in the DSM, including most cases of depression. Moreover, although it has not been recognized as the treatment of choice for depression, outcome studies convincingly show behavior therapy is more effective than drug treatment and it is safe. Conflict of interest, not science, is determining psychiatric care.
Whereas the diagnosis, explanation, and treatment of physical illness are scientifically sound, this is not true of psychiatric care of mental disorder. Depression, the #1 psychiatric diagnosis, illustrates this failure and it is the subject of Grifting Depression: Psychiatry's Failure as a Medical Science. Psychiatry's current form of medicalization began in 1980 with publication of DSM-III, the diagnostic manual that became the basis for the chemical imbalance theory, psychiatry's explanation for depression, and for reliance on antidepressant drugs to treat depression, "revolutionizing psychiatric care." DSM-III became the model for all the DSM manuals that followed. However, unlike other medical diagnostic manuals, the DSM fails to meet scientific and medical standards of reliability and validity. The chemical imbalance theory is based on research that violates basic tenets of the scientific method. Tests of the theory contradict it. In addition, tests of treatment effectiveness find antidepressant drugs to be no better than placebo. Studies show that the benefit attributed to antidepressant drugs is a placebo effect, but unlike placebos, the chemicals in these drugs are harmful to many. Research strongly supports an alternative theory, a behavioral explanation (psychological rather than biological) for most of the mental disorders listed in the DSM, including most cases of depression. Moreover, although it has not been recognized as the treatment of choice for depression, outcome studies convincingly show behavior therapy is more effective than drug treatment and it is safe. Conflict of interest, not science, is determining psychiatric care.
Using facet theory and Hackett's pioneering development of the declarative mapping sentence (DMS) as a qualitative methodology, this volume explains the process of formulating and applying the DMS to critically assess female representation in science fiction. Using a comparative approach to the development of female roles in Western science fiction films and television, the authors illustrate how the DMS is formulated and used to analyse the psychological and behavioral profiles of female characters. By maintaining the common structure of the DMS across films while adapting its content for each female role, the text demonstrates the flexibility of the DMS in providing a structure for varied research domains, enabling results to be uniformly compared, contrasted and classified. This insightful and thought-provoking volume will appeal to researchers, academics and educators interested in psychological methods and statistics, qualitative research in gender identity, and research methods more generally. Those especially interested in behavioural psychology, gender and cinema, and science fiction will also benefit from this volume.
Clear presentation of the underlying theory Practical introduction to fitting Rasch models by means of the freely available statistical software R
In this volume prominent scholars from both psychology and education describe how these new rules of measurement work and how they differ from the old rules. Several contributors have been involved in the recent construction or revision of a major test, while others are well-known for their theoretical contributions to measurement. The goal is to provide an integrated yet comprehensive reference source concerned with contemporary issues and approaches in testing and measurement.
This book provides users of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) with information on applying the WAIS-IV, including additional indexes and information regarding use in special populations for advanced clinical use and interpretation. The book offers sophisticated users of the WAIS-IV and Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-IV) guidelines on how to enhance the clinical applicability of these tests. The first section of the book provides an overview of the WAIS-IV, WMS-IV, and new Advanced Clinical Solutions for Use with the WAIS-IV/WMS-IV (ACS). In this section, examiners will learn: Normal versus atypical score variabilityLow-score prevalence in healthy adults versus clinical populationsAssessing whether poor performance reflects a decline in function or is the result of suboptimal effort New social cognition measures found in the ACS are also
presented. The second part focuses on applying the topics in the
first section to specific clinical conditions, including
recommended protocols for specific clientele (e.g. using
demographically adjusted norms when evaluating individuals with
brain injury). Common clinical conditions are discussed, including
Alzheimer s disease, mild cognitive impairment, traumatic brain
injury, and more. Each chapter provides case examples applying all
three test batteries and using report examples as they are obtained
from the scoring assistant. Finally, the use of the WAIS-IV/WMS-IV
and the ACS in forensic settings is presented.
-Based on a comprehensive and exhaustive empirically-based analysis of children's play: the research observed and analyzed the play activities of 289 children who are developing typically, and 203 children who are developing with delays. -Use children's naturally occurring play activities for evaluation, as opposed to eliciting responses to contrived tasks or questions for the child or caregiver -Geared specifically for personnel who serve young children - from late infancy through the preschool period who are developing with delays: no other system covers the age span of late infancy through the preschool period. - The assessment is "language free" - does not require children to answer questions, thereby extending its use to children from various cultural backgrounds, children who are developing with language delays, and those with relevant disabilities. -Ideal where parents or caregivers may not be fully aware of what their child knows or can do. -The online training program for practitioners is designed for exclusive online use, rendering it appealing for wide-spread use.
A systematic, innovative introduction to the field of network analysis, Network Psychometrics with R: A Guide for Behavioral and Social Scientists provides a comprehensive overview of and guide to both the theoretical foundations of network psychometrics as well as modelling techniques developed from this perspective. Written by pioneers in the field, this textbook showcases cutting-edge methods in an easily accessible format, accompanied by problem sets and code. After working through this book, readers will be able to understand the theoretical foundations behind network modelling, infer network topology, and estimate network parameters from different sources of data. This book features an introduction on the statistical programming language R that guides readers on how to analyse network structures and their stability using R. While Network Psychometrics with R is written in the context of social and behavioral science, the methods introduced in this book are widely applicable to data sets from related fields of study. Additionally, while the text is written in a non-technical manner, technical content is highlighted in textboxes for the interested reader. Network Psychometrics with R is ideal for instructors and students of undergraduate and graduate level courses and workshops in the field of network psychometrics as well as established researchers looking to master new methods. This book is accompanied by a companion website with resources for both students and lecturers.
FROM PLACEBO TO PANACEA With the latest generation of psychoactive drugs, has pharmacology at last triumphed over mental illness? A close look at world scientific literature would suggest otherwise. The sobering truth is that many claims about the efficacy of drug therapies for everything from depression to schizophrenia have been exaggerated. What, then, accounts for the inflated confidence clinicians and the lay public alike often have in the new generation of "wonder drugs"? Find out in From Placebo to Panacea. From Placebo to Panacea is not an indictment of drug therapy. Rather, it is a reasoned analysis of the efficacy of psychoactive drugs as compared to other forms of treatment—backed by hard empirical data. Above all, it is meant to function as a therapist's and patient's guide to making more informed decisions when considering treatment options. The book begins with an in-depth discussion of salient problems with standard methods of measuring the usefulness of psychoactive drugs. Next is an exploration of a wide range of factors that can bias test results, both technical (e.g., patients participating in double-blind trials can usually tell whether they are receiving an inactive placebo or a psychoactive drug) and psychosocial. Also considered are problems arising from current systems for diagnosing mental disorders, including complications resulting from comorbidity. Subsequent chapters focus on drug therapies for specific disorders in both adults and children. The authors cover depression and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, borderline personality disorder, attention deficit, and hyperactivity. Each chapter carefully considers the published findings on the disorder under discussion, as well as questions of side effects, suicide, and potential long-term benefits. A final chapter synthesizes the findings from previous chapters into a comprehensive picture of the current state of psychoactive drug therapy. Throughout, the book provides valuable suggestions for ways of improving and building upon existing knowledge. Offering an empirically based appraisal of the strengths and limitations of drug-based treatment for psychiatric disorders, From Placebo to Panacea is must reading for psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, as well as psychopharmacologists and drug development researchers and patients. "The long list of treatment failures, ranging from insulin coma to lobotomy, speaks for itself . . . skepticism should prevail with respect to all evaluations of research, particularly if they involve the welfare of large numbers of persons."—Seymour Fisher and Roger P. Greenberg Is the new generation of psychoactive "wonder drugs" really as effective as it is purported to be? And, perhaps most significant, in an age of managed care, what are the dangers of uncritical faith in the usefulness of these drugs? From Placebo to Panacea examines these questions. It separates fact from fiction, and injects a note of healthy questioning into the otherwise unreserved chorus of praise for psychotropics. From Placebo to Panacea:
The emergence of intelligent technologies, sophisticated natural language processing methodologies and huge textual repositories, invites a new approach for the challenge of automatically identifying personality dimensions through the analysis of textual data. This short book aims to (1) introduce the challenge of computational personality analysis, (2) present a unique approach to personality analysis and (3) illustrate this approach through case studies and worked-out examples. This book is of special relevance to psychologists, especially those interested in the new insights offered by new computational and data-intensive tools, and to computational social scientists interested in human personality and language processing. |
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