Battery Of Items Research Articles

Testing Creativity and Personality to Explore Creative Potentials in the Science Classroom

Integrating creativity into science classes may pave the way to tapping complex scientific phenomena. Although not yet conclusively defined nor assessed using standardized measures, creativity is understood to support cognitive learning in formal and informal settings. However, the successful integration of creativity in educational modules depends on many factors. As our knowledge of how to identify these factors is still limited, teachers may have difficulties effectively monitoring and fostering creativity. Consequently, a valid means to measure creativity would help teachers to identify creativity and its influencing factors within the limited scope of science lessons. In the present study, we collected data from 538 Bavarian secondary school students (M ± SD = 16.96 ± 2.99; 65.4%, female) focussing on personality and creativity measures. Comparable to previous studies, two subscales for creativity were applied: act, comprising conscious and adaptable cognitive processes, and flow, describing a creative mental state of full immersion. Since personality is understood to be linked to creativity, we used the Big Five scale with its shortened item battery to assess personality. We found that personal characteristics such as conscientiousness and flow, openness and agreeableness, and extraversion and neuroticism were significantly correlated. Anticipated gender and age differences were only evident when extreme groups were compared: age influenced act in younger male students and flow in older female students. Drawing on the literature and our results, we suggest pedagogical approaches to provide opportunities for creativity in science classrooms.

Popular Attitudes Toward the Distribution of Vaccines Against COVID‐19: The Swiss Case

With the arrival of vaccines against the novel coronavirus in late 2020, the issue of how vaccines should be distributed and which groups should be prioritized has become salient. We study popular attitudes toward the distribution of COVID‐19 vaccines and how these have changed over the course of the pandemic in Switzerland, drawing on data from two rounds of an original public opinion survey conducted in the spring and winter of 2020. We find that the public supports prioritizing vulnerable groups such as health care workers or the elderly. We also find a notable degree of cross‐generational solidarity: younger age cohorts prioritize the elderly, while older groups prioritize (typically younger) health care workers. We then examine whether this finding is not in fact driven by vaccine hesitancy. This is not the case for older age groups, whose solidarity thus seems to be genuine. Vaccine hesitancy is an issue among younger groups, however.

Interval Identification Predicts Success in Melodic Dictation

The purpose of this study was to investigate possible predictive relationships between interval identification and melodic dictation performance on tasks where students identify short pitch spans after a brief tonicization. College musicians ( N = 35) completed an interval identification test and a series of melodic dictation tasks. Results indicated that interval identification and melodic dictation tests reflected a battery of items ranging from very easy to very difficult with acceptable Cronbach’s α levels. We conducted a two-stage hierarchical regression analysis to examine the extent to which interval identification served as a predictor of melodic dictation accuracy while controlling for selected music and demographic variables. Results indicated that interval identification served as a significant predictor of melodic dictation scores, contributing 28.9% of the variance in melodic dictation scores while controlling for musical experience variables. The analysis indicated a dictation task by interval ability interaction based on grouping by lower, mid-, and upper performing groups on the interval identification test. Issues in measurement of melodic dictation accuracy and strategies that affect the development of melodic dictation skills are discussed.

Consumer Perception of Food Quality and Safety in Western Balkan Countries: Evidence from Albania and Kosovo.

Domestic food markets are of significant importance to Kosovar and Albanian companies because access to export markets is under-developed, partly as a result of the gaps in food safety and quality standards. Kosovar and Albanian consumers’ use of food safety attributes and their evaluation of the quality of domestic food versus imported food are the research objectives of this study. The paper is based on a structured consumer survey of 300 Kosovars and 349 Albanians analyzing their perceptions of issues related to food safety and quality, measured through two respective batteries of items using a 5-point Likert scale. We used the t-test to identify differences between populations, correlation analysis and the bootstrapping method. Despite the prevalent problems with food safety, consumers in both countries consider domestic food to be safer as well as of higher quality than imported products. Kosovars are more likely than Albanians to perceive domestic food products to be significantly better than imported products. Female and better educated consumers use information related to food safety more often. Expiry date, domestic and local origin, and brand reputation are the most frequently used safety and quality cues for both samples. International food standards such as ISO or HACCP are less frequently used as quality cues by these consumer groups. It is important to strengthen the institutional framework related to food safety and quality following best practices from EU countries.

A New Look at Cohort Trend and Underlying Mechanisms in Cognitive Functioning.

The prevalence of dementia in the United States seems to have declined over the last few decades. We investigate trends and their underlying mechanisms in cognitive functioning (CF) across 7 decades of birth cohorts from the Greatest Generation to Baby Boomers. Data come from 30,191 participants of the 1996-2014 Health and Retirement Study. CF is measured as a summary score on a 35-point cognitive battery of items. We use generalized linear models to examine the trends in CF and explanatory variables across birth cohorts. Then, Karlson-Holm-Breen decomposition method is used to evaluate the contribution of each explanatory variable to the trend of CF. CF has been improving from the Greatest Generation to Late Children of Depression and War Babies, but then significantly declines since the Early-Baby Boomers and continues into Mid-Baby Boomers. This pattern is observed universally across genders, race/ethnicities, education groups, occupations, income, and wealth quartiles. The worsening CF among Baby Boomers does not originate from childhood conditions, adult education, or occupation. It can be attributed to lower household wealth, lower likelihood of marriage, higher levels of loneliness, depression and psychiatric problems, and more cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., obesity, physical inactivity, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and heart disease). The worsening CF among Baby Boomers may potentially reverse past favorable trends in dementia as they reach older ages and cognitive impairment becomes more common if no effective interventions and policy responses are in place.

What Journalists Want and What They Ought to Do (In)Congruences Between Journalists’ Role Conceptions and Audiences’ Expectations

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how journalists’ role conceptions compare to what the population expects fromthem. We model this interrelation as part of the reflexive relationship between journalism and audiences which is characterized by mutual (self-)expectations that can be more or less congruent. Through a representative CATI-survey (n = 1,000) we explore the tasks German citizens expect journalists to fulfill and compare them with existing representative data on German journalists’ own role conceptions as collected in the “Worlds of Journalism” study. For that purpose, we adapted the item battery on journalistic role conceptions for the audience's perspective and complemented it with potential new journalistic tasks such as moderating public discourse online. Results show that what journalists want to do most is also what the population thinks they should do: these are primarily the traditional journalistic tasks of objective reporting as well as analysis and explanation, but also the promotion of tolerance and cultural diversity. Looking more closely at the population's opinions reveals that respondents, in general, also want journalists to provide source transparency. However, individual citizens’ preferences are diverse, with age, gender, and news usage practices correlating with different expectations of journalism.

CASD-14: A Questionnaire on Civic Attitudes and Sustainable Development Values for Service-Learning in Early Adolescents

The service-learning disciplines can offer a unique opportunity for the civic development of sustainable values, as there is a large body of research that links them to values and civic attitudes. Given the need to develop instruments to measure the impact of service-learning methodology in early adolescence, a questionnaire was developed. For this purpose, a group of experts in the field of service-learning proposed a battery of items measuring three different constructs, named as follows: solidarity, compromise–responsibility and respect–dialog. The factor structure was examined, as well as its invariance across sex. The questionnaire confirmed good psychometric properties. Furthermore, the results have shown optimal goodness-of-fit indices. Sex was a variable to consider, as the analysis of invariance did not reach the scalar level. Lastly, the CASD-14 showed optimal test–retest reliability for both subsamples after eight months. The greatest contribution of this study is that it provides a direction for the application and sustainable development of the current scale, which might be considered a valuable assessment tool for early adolescent students’ service-learning. More research is needed with regard to sex-related differences in early adolescence.

Who Are the Nonusers of Sunscreen, and What Are Their Reasons? Development of a New Item Set

Sunscreen use is an important aspect of sun protective behavior. Previous studies revealed deficits in sunscreen use. Our aim was to quantify sunscreen use in a nationwide representative study in Germany as well as to develop and test an item battery on reasons for none use of sunscreen. We analyzed data of the National Cancer Aid Monitoring (NCAM; wave 4; n = 3000, aged 14–45). To describe those who only use sunscreen rarely or never, we used chi2 statistics and logistic regression analysis. In addition, we utilized a newly developed item battery on barriers to sunscreen use. Here, we used Cronbach’s alpha to investigate reliability. In total, 20.7% reported using sunscreen rarely or never. Infrequent or none use of sunscreen was associated with male sex, immigrant background, none or rare sunbathing in summer, and current or past use of sunbeds. Participants with higher skin cancer risk (e.g., pale skin) were less likely to use sunscreen infrequently or never. The major reasons for not using sunscreen were inconvenience and no perceived need for applying sunscreen. Overall, internal consistency of the item battery on potential barriers to sunscreen use was very good (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.865). We found deficits in sunscreen use especially in sunbed users, men, and individuals with immigrant background. Our results give important implications for future prevention and health promotion campaigns on sunscreen use.

(Un)expected exception: validating acquiescent response style factor in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT This study explores the acquiescent response style (ARS) among respondents in the Czech Republic. To analyse ARS, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed and the response style (RS) was modelled as a latent variable. The RS factor in the CFA model must be validated by its relationship to education and age, i.e. proxies of cognitive ability. The two studies presented in this article use large amount of data as all available balanced batteries of items were analysed. In Study 1, the RS factor showed no correlation with age/education in most of the models. Study 2 employed additional measures of cognitive ability and education and confirmed the overall absence of the relationship. Author concludes that the modelled RS factor then cannot be considered the ARS and deduces that the most likely explanation of the identified systematic error variance is the respondents’ carelessness manifested by automatically choosing the extreme agreement, or choosing the first presented answer as a result of memory effect.

Political attitudes vary with detection of androstenone.

Building on a growing body of research suggesting that political attitudes are part of broader individual and biological orientations, we test whether the detection of the hormone androstenone is predictive of political attitudes. The particular social chemical analyzed in this study is androstenone, a nonandrogenic steroid found in the sweat and saliva of many mammals, including humans. A primary reason for scholarly interest in odor detection is that it varies so dramatically from person to person. Using participants' self-reported perceptions of androstenone intensity, together with a battery of survey items testing social and political preferences and orientations, this research supports the idea that perceptions of androstenone intensity relate to political orientations-most notably, preferences for social order-lending further support to theories positing the influence of underlying biological traits on sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors.

THE FRAILTY INDEX CONSTRUCTED USING FEATURE SELECTION METHODS IS THE BEST MEASURE OF BIOLOGICAL AGE

No single biomarker can reliably represent the complexity of aging. One way to overcome this shortcoming is to aggregate multiple biomarkers into a composite index. The frailty index (FI), which is simply the proportion of accumulated deficits among a set of various health markers, reflects functional abilities and risks of adverse outcomes. Furthermore, the FI accounts for the variation in mortality among individuals of the same chronological age (CA). Thus, the FI is a reliable measure of biological age (BA). Unlike the FI, other popular BA-estimating algorithms use CA directly as a biomarker or indirectly to derive model parameters. However, genetic, pharmaceutical, and intervention studies have shown that aging is delayable or reversible, indicating that CA is not the direct cause of aging. The popular Klemera-Doubal (K-D) method proposes two equations for BA estimation: BE uses CA to derive equation parameters, and BEC directly incorporates CA as an additional biomarker. BA estimates by the K-D method, especially by BEC, have been shown to outperform CA. Using Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS) data, we constructed an FI from a battery of health items selected using machine learning methods for their ability to predict mortality. We compared the FI with CA and the two K-D BA estimates and found that the FI was the better predictor of mortality, especially among nonagenarians. The results were replicable with the FI calculated from different sets of selected health items using NHANES and HRS datasets. These results demonstrate the FI as the best-performing measure of BA.

Self-efficacy in bipolar disorder: Development and validation of a self-report scale

BackgroundSuccessful management of bipolar disorder (BPD) typically involves individuals undertaking a complex array of self-management tasks (e.g., taking medication, monitoring symptoms, following a regular sleep routine). Many people with BPD doubt they can successfully undertake these tasks. This low sense of self-efficacy may lead to the perpetuation of BPD symptoms, poor quality of life, and low adherence to treatment. Research on self-efficacy in BPD has been hampered by the lack of a short, reliable and valid self-report scale that is practical to use in clinical and research settings. We sought to develop such a scale. MethodsBPD patients (N = 303) completed a new battery of items measuring their self-efficacy for performing BPD self-management tasks. Modern psychometric techniques such as bifactor analyses were used to refine the scale, determine an appropriate scoring algorithm, and establish reliability and validity. ResultsThe Bipolar Self-Efficacy Scale (BPSES) comprises 17 items. BPSES scores were reliable, sensitive to change, and correlated with theoretically related constructs such as social adjustment and positive affect. BPSES scores had substantially higher associations with depression and quality of life than an alternative instrument that measured self-efficacy in general, rather than self-efficacy specifically related to bipolar disorder self-management. LimitationsPatients were required to be medically managed while attending adjunctive psychological treatment of BPD. ConclusionsThe BPSES is a brief scale that can be used to reliably and validly measure bipolar self-efficacy. It may be fruitful to use the scale in clinical practice, and studies investigating treatment outcomes, mechanisms, and moderators.

Friends, relatives, sanity, and health: The costs of politics.

Political scientists have long known that political involvement exacts costs but they have typically defined these costs in relatively narrow, largely economic terms. Though anecdotal evidence suggests that the costs of politics may in fact extend beyond economics to frayed personal relationships, compromised emotional stability, and even physical problems, no systematic evidence on these broader costs exists. We construct and validate batteries of survey items that delineate the physical, social, and emotional costs of political engagement and administer these items to a demographically representative sample of U.S. adults. The results suggest that a large number of Americans believe their physical health has been harmed by their exposure to politics and even more report that politics has resulted in emotional costs and lost friendships.

A School-Based Screening Tool for Adolescents With Low Motor Coordination Abilities.

This study sought to select the most relevant test items from the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOTMP-2) and from a selection of health-related fitness tests for identifying school teenagers with poor motor coordination. The 241 participants in this study (144 boys, 97 girls aged 13-14 years old) were tested on the short form of the BOTMP-2 and on the following additional fitness tests: (a) seated medicine ball test, (b) broad jump, (c) handgrip strength, (d) alternate hand ball wall toss, (e) 10 × 5-meter agility shuttle run, and (f) Chester step test. We performed a factor analysis of participant scores on these various tasks and BOTMP-2 test items to reduce them to the least number of meaningful and useful items. Four factors explained 45% of the data variance: gross motor skills and power (including broad jump, hand ball toss, shuttle run, and sit-ups tests); fine motor skills (including copying star, following the maze and paper folding); core strength and balance (including push-ups, hopping, and balance beam); and general body strength (including medicine ball throw and handgrip). We conclude that an efficient school-based battery of test items to screen 13-14 year old adolescents for fitness and coordination should assess these four factors and might especially rely upon the broad jump, copying a star shape, hopping handgrip strength, aerobic fitness, and wall ball toss.

Who makes a good citizen? The role of personality

In this paper we explore the link between personality and attitudes towards good citizenship and civic duty. To do so we recruited 371 eligible Canadian voters from a national panel, asking a variety of questions regarding their level of political participation and attitudinal questions regarding the importance of a number of behaviors typically associated with good citizenship (i.e., voting, paying taxes, staying informed, etc.). Importantly, we included two batteries of personality items: the HEXACO, which covers general personality (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience), and the Dark Triad (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism). The analysis reveals a consistent and important explanatory role for personality, even after controlling for standard explanatory factors such as age, gender, income, education, political interest, knowledge, efficacy, and placement on the left-right scale. Among other findings, we document a positive relationship between the endorsement of good citizenship and narcissism, and a negative relationship for psychopathy.

Measuring Personal Economic Hardship and Its Impact on Political Trust During the Great Recession

The great recession has severely harmed the living conditions of many citizens in South European democracies. This article explores to what extent the deterioration of personal circumstances due to the economic crisis is related to the erosion of political trust. Previous accounts have provided scarce evidence of this sort of egotropic effects. Instead, they have underlined the role of sociotropic evaluations of the economic and political performance of institutions. However, these factors could be suspicious of endogeneity and third-variable bias. This article uses a survey fielded in the Spanish region of Catalonia that contains a novel battery of items to measure how the crisis has personally affected respondents. Latent class analysis is applied to that battery and propensity score matching is employed to estimate the causal effect of being personally affected by the crisis vis-a-vis not being affected. Results indicate that personal hardship reduces trust in institutions in turbulent economic times. Furthermore, the study of the Catalan circumstances sheds light on how attribution of blame works in a multilevel structure of governance during times of crisis. Personal economic hardship happens to decrease trust on national institutions and the EU but not on regional institutions, controlling for the ethno-national composition of the population of that region.

Are Donation-Based Measures of Ideology Valid Predictors of Individual-Level Policy Preferences?

This article validates donation-based measures of ideology against a rich battery of policy items from the Congressional Campaign Election Study. Donation-based measures are powerful predictors of policy preferences for a wide range of issues and successfully discriminate between donors from the same party. The overall predictive accuracy and relative improvement over party are comparable to what is achieved by scaling roll call votes in legislatures. The results add to an existing body of evidence on the internal validity and reliability of donation-based measures. They also resolve a standing debate in the literature over whether political donations are a valid indicator of donors’ policy preferences.

Instrumental or procedural democrats? The evolution of procedural preferences after democratization

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses instrumentalist attitudes to democracy – attitudes according to which democracy is not valued for itself, but accepted only as a means to specific policy goals. Pippa Norris has argued that in the process of democratic consolidation, such instrumentalist conceptions of democracy are replaced with proceduralist ones, leading to an enlightened understanding of democracy. We use the unique case of German reunification to show that this process takes at least a generation to complete. Based on data from a novel battery of items fielded via the German GESIS panel, we show an East–West divide in democratic instrumentalism, which, however, is smaller among younger generations. While our findings do confirm Norris’ thesis that growing democratic experience leads to a shift from instrumental to procedural understandings of democracy, we also show that instrumental democrats still make up a sizeable portion of the citizenry that might withdraw support if dissatisfied.

Is ‘Spiritual but Not Religious’ a Replacement for Religion or Just One Step on the Path between Religion and Non-religion?

We analyze survey data collected from six universities in the United States, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (n = 6571). Survey respondents were asked to self-identify as “spiritual and religious,” “spiritual but not religious,” “religious but not spiritual” or “not religious or spiritual.” Using a battery of items describing both religious and spiritual beliefs, we uncover which beliefs are most regularly shared by persons choosing each of the four self-identity labels. Even though American students are generally more religious than the Scandinavian students, we find that three of the four self-identity labels have quite similar meanings across cultural settings. Factor analyzing the belief items, we find two latent factors that we label as “religio-spirituality” and “anti-institutional spirituality.” However, when plotted in a two-dimensional space defined by these two latent factors, respondents in each of the four self-identity categories mostly align along a single continuum from “spiritual and religious” to “not spiritual or religious.” Nevertheless, the “spiritual but not religious” students stand out for their high scores on “anti-institutional spirituality.”

50 YEARS AFTER ADEA: PERSPECTIVES OF AGE DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE

AbstractThe perspectives of 3,900 workers ages 45+ are explored in this paper. The overall survey takes into account many areas of work and jobs. This paper focuses on the battery of items related to age discrimination in the workforce. This topic is especially salient because of the recent 50th anniversary of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. How far have we come in protecting older workers? What more is needed? This paper will also include perspectives from additional qualitative research related to older workers and their experiences with age discrimination. About 3 in 5 older workers have either seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace. Of those, about 40 percent believe age discrimination is very common and another half say it is somewhat common. Age discrimination is a top reason that older workers fear losing their job. Age discrimination is also often perceived as a limitation to finding a new job. About two-thirds strongly agree that older Americans should be protected from age discrimination just like they are protected from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, or religion, with an additional 27 percent who somewhat agree. We will use this data to foster a discussion of the current state of ADEA, policy considerations, and current/recent legal cases related to age discrimination