Effects Of Instructional Set Research Articles

P1.077 Examining the effects of instructional set on task performance and prioritization: preliminary work using a modi.ed attention operating characteristic model

P1.077 Examining the effects of instructional set on task performance and prioritization: preliminary work using a modi.ed attention operating characteristic model

Instructional Set and Internet Use by Low-Income Adults

This research examined the effects of instructional set on Internet use by low-income adults during a 16-month longitudinal study. Participants (n = 117) received instructions that focused on either the Internet's communication tools or its information tools. Internet use was continuously and automatically recorded. Survey measures of computer and Internet experiences, affect and attitudes were obtained to examine their mediational role in the relationship between instructional set and Internet use. Results indicated that instructions focused on the Internet's information tools led to greater Internet use than instructions focused on its communication tools or only basic instructions about how to use the Internet. Implications for reducing the digital divide are discussed.

The detection of fake-bad and fake-good responding on the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory III.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the 3 Modifying Indices of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory III (MCMI-III) in the detection of fake-bad and fake-good responding. The sample consisted of 160 psychiatric outpatients. Paired t tests were performed to examine the effects of instructional set (faking vs. standard instructions). As hypothesized, instructional set produced significant differences on Scale X, Scale Y, and Scale Z in both fake-bad and fake-good analyses. Single-scale cutoff scores were as effective as multiple-scale cutoffs. The overall rates of successful classification indicated moderate effectiveness and utility of the MCMI-III Modifying Indices in the detection of dissimulated responding. When base rates were varied to more closely approximate a general clinical population, overall classification accuracy increased, but identification of faking (positive predictive power) gradually eroded with declining base-rate estimates. At lower base rates of faking, MCMI-III standard cutoff points yielded a high number of false positives.

Problem Solving from Different Perspectives: An Investigation of Instructional Context on Social Problem-Solving Ability

The Means-Ends Problem Solving task (MEPS) was used to assess the effect of instructional set on means-ends thinking. Half of the vignettes were presented from the perspective of a hypothetical individual and half from the subjects’ own personal perspective. Results showed that subjects instructed to respond from the perspective of the hypothetical other produced less socially appropriate responses when their own perspective was presented first. When the order of instructed perspective was reversed (i.e., hypothetical other first), no differences in response quality or quantity were found. This finding supports the use of the MEPS in its traditional form. Results from a second task (alternative solution generation), designed to assess the effect of priming across different social problem solving-tasks, revealed a facilitative priming effect. Individuals generated more solutions to a problem situation when the previous MEPS vignettes had been in the instructed perspective order of Other-Self. Implications of the study’s findings for a two-stage model of problem solving and clinical assessment are discussed.

Effects of instructional set on self-reports of panic attacks

Surveys of panic attacks in nonclinical populations have produced prevalence estimates that vary widely. As a result, recent critiques of the epidemiological literature have emphasized the importance of (1) educating respondents about the nature of panic, and (2) distinguishing between situationally-bound panics versus attacks that occur spontaneously or “out of the blue.” The present study examined the role of both of these factors in a survey of panic attacks among university students. Half the subjects ( N=805) were given a Panic Attack Questionnaire that provided a description of panic taken from the DSM-III. The other half ( N=805) were given the same questionnaire along with a written vignette describing a typical clinical panic attack. The two questionnaires resulted in prevalence rates that were substantially different (51.3% vs 33.4%). However, the effect of adding the clinical vignette was specific to those subjects whose panics were situationally bound; the proportion of subjects with attacks that occured “unexpectedly or ‘out of the blue’” (6.7%) was comparable with both questionnaires. Overall, the results suggest that epidemiological research is hindered by respondents' “common-sense” conceptions of panic, and a number of factors that appear to influence prevalence rates are discussed. Mr. Kuldip Maini for assistance with the statistical analyses.

Effects of instructional set on attributions of nonvolition during hypnotic and nonhypnotic analgesia.

Fifty highly hypnotizable subjects were assigned to four treatment groups or a no-treatment control group and then underwent two pain stimulation trials. Half the treated subjects were administered hypnotic analgesia, half waking analgesia. Within hypnotic and nonhypnotic treatments, half the subjects were given actively worded analgesia instructions, half passively worded instructions. Subjects in the four treated groups reported equivalent pain reduction and equivalent use of coping imagery, although hypnotic subjects rated themselves as more deeply hypnotized than did nonhypnotic subjects. Both hypnotic and nonhypnotic subjects given passive instructions rated their pain reduction as occurring involuntarily, whereas those given active instructions reported that their pain was reduced through their active use of coping strategies. These findings support sociocognitive formulations of hypnotic responding that view ratings of involuntariness as reflecting contextually guided interpretations of behavior.

Effects of instructional set on attributions of nonvolition during hypnotic and nonhypnotic analgesia.

Fifty highly hypnotizable subjects were assigned to four treatment groups or a no-treatment control group and then underwent two pain stimulation trials. Half the treated subjects were administered hypnotic analgesia, half waking analgesia. Within hypnotic and nonhypnotic treatments, half the subjects were given actively worded analgesia instructions, half passively worded instructions. Subjects in the four treated groups reported equivalent pain reduction and equivalent use of coping imagery, although hypnotic subjects rated themselves as more deeply hypnotized than did nonhypnotic subjects. Both hypnotic and nonhypnotic subjects given passive instructions rated their pain reduction as occurring involuntarily, whereas those given active instructions reported that their pain was reduced through their active use of coping strategies. These findings support sociocognitive formulations of hypnotic responding that view ratings of involuntariness as reflecting contextually guided interpretations of behavior.

Effects of Instructional Set on Amnesic Recognition Memory Performance

Tests that tapped memory for spatial location, temporal order, frequency of occurrence, category membership were administered to a group of alcoholic Korsakoff patients, a group of mixed amnesic patients with primarily temporal lobe pathology, a group of normal subjects. The four tests were administered with incidental as well as intentional learning conditions. All groups performed better in the intentional than the incidental condition of the category recognition test. None of the groups performed better in the intentional than the incidental conditions on any of the other tests. The data were interpreted as implying that amnesic patients do not benefit from intentional learning conditions in tests of memory for contextual stimuli.

Effect of instructional set on responses to the Geriatric Depression Scale.

Effect of instructional set on responses to the Geriatric Depression Scale.

Physical Disability and the Perception of Social Interaction

Observers watched a videotape of a stimulus person under one of four instructional sets. It was the subject's presumption that the target person thought her interactant was either: (a) physically normal; (b) taking medication for an allergy; (c) taking medication for epilepsy; or (d)facially scarred. Observers performed a perceptual segmentation task and commented upon breakpoints established in the stimulus tape. Persons given the facial scar set engaged in a fine-grained analysis of the stimulus tape and focused on nonverbal aspects of the behavior stream. A second study examined the effects of instructional sets (allergy or scar) and behavior focus (verbal or nonverbal) on the segmentation task. The latter variable influenced breakpoint frequency while the former did not. Results are discussed in terms of selective attention, level of analysis, and change of meaning explanations.

The effects of instructional set on the outcome of a stress management program.

A multicomponent stress management program, consisting of education about stress, various sorts of relaxation training, and cognitive coping strategies, was administered under two different instructional sets: In the positive demand set the program was touted to have previously been shown to be very effective, while in the neutral demand set the program was described as experimental. The two conditions were compared to a waiting list control. Results showed higher expectations of benefit in the positive demand group. Moreover, this group rated themselves as more able to cope with stress than the other two groups. Finally, the positive demand group showed significantly greater reductions in systolic blood pressure reactivity to laboratory stress tests (mental arithmetic and cold pressor) than the other two groups. The posttest advantages seemed to be mediated by a significantly higher level of home practice in the positive demand group.

The effects of instructional set on social skills performance among psychiatric inpatient children

The present investigation examined the extent to which children's social skills performance was influenced by altering the instructional set of the assessment procedures. Thirty-four psychiatric inpatient children, ages 7 to 13, completed behavioral and self-report measures of social skills under three alternative assessment conditions. Initial assessment was conducted under standard instructions. On subsequent assessment occasions, children received instructional sets to perform in a way to convey highly appropriate social behavior (fake-good) or highly inappropriate social behavior (fake-poor). The order of the instructional sets was counterbalanced across children and across alternate forms of the measures. The results indicated significant changes on behavioral role-play performance and knowledge measures as a function of instructional set. Social skills performance under fake-poor and fake-good instructions were consistently lower and higher, respectively, than pretest performance under standard instructions. The implications for identifying social skills deficits in children and evaluating intervention programs are discussed.

Effects of Instructional Set and Personality Variables on the Use of Touching

The effects of demand characteristics and relevant personality variables on the use of touching were explored. Half of the 32 male and 32 female subjects received instructions discussing touching as one method of expressing emotions. All subjects pretended that an assistant was a friend with whom they roleplayed six emotional feelings. Subjects completed the Mosher Sex-guilt Scale and the Body Accessibility Questionnaire. Those subjects given additional instructions touched more but felt less comfortable with the assistant. Sex of the subject, sex of the assistant, amount of sex guilt, and degree of body accessibility did not have significant effects on touching. However, differential touching was produced by different emotional cues. The results contradict previous suggestions that touching is a function of a stable personality characteristic. Also, unlike clinical literature which suggests that touching produces intimacy and comfort, these findings suggested that instructional set can increase touching but decrease comfort.

Effects of instructional set on Bender recall performance of learning disabled and normal children.

Twenty-eight normal and 28 learning disabled children were given the Bender-Gestalt Test under instructional sets of low (standard) attention or high attention. Results failed to support the hypothesis that high attention instructions would lead to differential recall performance of the diagnostic groups. Normal children produced better designs during recall than learning disabled children regardless of instructional set. The evidence suggests that standard Bender instructions should not be altered in an attempt to elicit recall performance differences.

The Effects of Instructional Set on Language Comprehension of Culturally Disadvantaged Children

The Effects of Instructional Set on Language Comprehension of Culturally Disadvantaged Children

An Examination of the Rule-Use Construct of the Frequency Theory of Verbal Discrimination Learning

Summary Sixty-six female and 18 male college students were employed in a study of the relative effect of instructional set and item familiarity on performance in a 20-word pair, verbal discrimination task. Results indicated performance was facilitated with a 2:1 frequency ratio of correct to incorrect items (p < .001), but the instructions and interaction effects were nonsignificant. The results were discussed in terms of overt and covert rehearsal of word pairs.

Effects of Instructional Set on the Comfortable Loudness Range

Ten normal-hearing young adult subjects measured their Comfortable Loudness Ranges (CLRs) using two instructional sets. The first instructional set (range tracking) was similar to the Bekesy Comfortable Loudness tracking method described by Jerger and Jerger (1974). The second instructional set (limit tracking) required the subjects to perform separate trackings of each limit (upper and lower) of their CLRs. Results demonstrated a 34.4 dB difference between CLRs for the two instructional sets. The range tracking method yielded the narrowest CLR. Both instructional sets yielded similar upper limits of the CLR. The results of the present investigation demonstrate the importance of instructions employed in research and clinical measurements of the CLR.

The interactive effects of instructional set, field dependence, and extraversion on the Holtzman Inkblot Technique.

Studied the interactive effects of examiner, instructional set, field dependence, and extraversion on the reactions of 81 males and 39 females to five Holtzman Inkblot Technique factor scores. Half of the Ss were told that the HIT was a measure of mental health and half that it was experimental in nature, which produced two instructional sets. Field dependence was measured with the Embedded Figures Test and extraversion by the Eysenck Personality Inventory. Subjective anxiety was tapped via the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Results revealed no differences among five examiners. However, three of the five HIT factors and the STAI were affected significantly by the instructional set. The effects, while significant, were not massive. Field dependence interacted with instructional set; field dependent Ss reacted with generally more changes in scores than did field independent S. Unlike field dependence, extraversion appeared unrelated to instructional set effects. The results are discussed in terms of how the factor scores interacted with the field dependence and instructional set in psychologically meaningful ways.

The effect of instructional set on the self-esteem of Navajo children.

Summary Two forms of the Children's Self-Social Constructs Test were administered to 248 first, second, and third grade Navajo boys and girls in order to explore (a) the assumption of cross-cultural equivalence for such measures and (b) the effects of different instructional sets on topographical measures of self-esteem. Results indicate that under standardized conditions the Navajo children rate themselves low in self-esteem. However, when the test rationale was communicated to the children, self-esteem scores significantly increased. Findings are discussed in terms of previous research which suggests Indian children have lower self-esteem than white children. The assumption of cross-cultural equivalence for topographical representations of the self is questioned. Also, problems inherent with using nonverbal measures of self-esteem cross-culturally are discussed.

A Manipulative Study of the Effect of Instructional Set on the Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Questionnaire Measures of Trait and State Anxiety: a Comparative Factor Analytic Approach

Within the context of a manipulative, laboratory experiment, two hundred and forty-two college students completed an anxiety battery twice. Half the subjects were instructed to answer the trait ("as you feel generally") items differently than the state ("as you feel presently"). Half were given no differential instructions. Subjects were also randomly assigned to one of four treatments designed to simulate alterations in level of state anxiety. Separate factor analyses resulted in distinct trait and state factors under both instructional conditions. Analysis of variance of factor scores indicated that the simulations altered level of state anxiety but not level of trait anxiety. Results were interpreted as generally supporting the validity of the trait-state distinction, but continued refinement of existing measures was recommended.