Faceted Approach Research Articles

Assessment of dental anxiety: A facet approach

Abstract Dental anxiety is a complicated phenomenon, and its multicomponent nature is often not acknowledged in existing measurement instruments. Using a facet design, a new Dental Anxiety Inventory (DAI) was constructed. Facets chosen were: time (made up of four elements: at home, on your way to the denstist, in the denstist's waiting room, in the dental chair), situation (three elements: introductory aspects, dentist-patient interaction, actual dental treatment), and reaction (three elements: subjective feelings, physical reactions, cognitive reactions). Psychometric qualities of the DAI are good. The internal structure of the DAI was studied by linear and nonlinear techniques, and was partially recovered from the data. The construct and criterion validity of the DAI was supported in several studies.

Work and nonwork relations: The conical structure of work and home life relationship

AbstractThe major objective of the present study was to analyze the structure of work‐nonwork relations. A definitional framework of the work‐nonwork domain was first suggested, based on the extant literature. The definition was then empirically tested by applying Similarity Structure Analysis to analyze the data, collected from a sample of 106 Israeli workers.The results support the hypotheses of the study. An empirical double ordered conceptual system was obtained, reflecting the two facets of the definition: behavior modality (instrumental, affective and cognitive) and social environment (work and home). A general lawfulness of a conical type was found that relates the definitional framework with the empirical structure.The facet approach applied in this study suggests that the various aspects of the domain may be characterized by different patterns of relationships. The results showed a clear distinction between the work and home regions. Further analysis revealed a compensation type of relationship between home and work in the instrumental and cognitive items and segmentation in the affective items. The results thus support the facet approach rather than the conventional approaches which consider work and non‐work as unitary concepts and attempt to establish which of three proposed patterns: compensation, spillover or segmentation, best characterizes their relationships.

Computer-Aided Knowledge Engineering for Corporate Information Retrieval

In 1987, Digital Equipment Corporation's internal Madret Information Services Group I Information Access Services (lAS) decided to build a single thesaurus system to support production and retrieval of multiple applications. This system TIMS (Thesaurus I Indexing Management System) bad to be dynamic and allow for easy modification and merging of volatile business terminology. A faceted approach was used for knowledge-base building and semantic representation. 1be system allowed the knowledge engineer to determine a classification structure and to develop relation types suited to a specific application's requirements.

A Theory for High-tech Curriculum Updating

SUMMARY This paper presents a new theory for high-technology curriculum updating. A mapping sentence, based on the FACET approach, has been designed to establish a definitional system for skills and knowledge required from an Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Technology (EET & MET) student upon his or her graduation. On the basis of the mapping sentence, four structured questionnaires were constructed and run on a representative (stratified) sample of EET and MET technologists and their supervisors. Structural lawfulness for occupational skills has been discovered through the Weighted Similarity Structure Analysis (WSSA1) method. The main aspects under investigation were (1) modality (cognitive, instrumental and affective); (2) time (skills demanded at present and those supposedly to be required three years hence); (3) form (manual or simulative); (4) scope (specific or interdisciplinary). The introduction and verification of the theory for high-tech curriculum updating presented in this article is ap...

Progression from enrolled to registered general nurse (1): charting the conversion

This is a report of part of an empirical evaluation of a conversion course for Enrolled Nurses. The focus of the study was the changes, if any, which might take place in the students. A five faceted approach was used to collect data including three value exercises designed to identify those characteristics and values deemed by the Nurse to be important elements of his/her self image, diary keeping and meetings with the students. This part of the paper deals with the methodological aspects of the study and reports on the diary keeping and the meetings with the students. Part two will relate to the value exercises used. The study provides evidence of some of the difficulties experienced by students in the transition from Enrolled Nurse to Registered General Nurse status. It also provides evidence of ‘desirable’ changes in the students which occurred during the course.

Variations in user involvement with educational software

This paper reports the development of a classification system for software according to the depth and type of involvement of the user with the software. With the recent acquisition of microcomputers by many schools, large amounts of educational software and games have been produced. Although, in general, children are highly motivated to use this software, whatever its nature, they become more involved with some programs than others. Three studies are discussed that investigate the concept of involvement and focus upon the different types of involvement produced by computer programs according to their motivational properties and type of learning produced. In the first and second studies, using the facet approach and the multivariate statistical procedures associated with it, a number of possible reasons for different attitudes to different types of software were explored using data taken from published descriptions of software for the BBC Micro. It was found that the different attitudes could be explained using only two facets, and that software could be classified in terms of the degree of user involvement produced and according to the mode in which information was presented to the user. In the third study, a questionnaire survey of teacher's and children's opinions of software, opinions of software were found to vary with the degree of user involvement produced. Possible contributions from this approach to the design and development of effective educational software are discussed.

Work and Nonwork Relations: A Facet Analysis

Abstract A definitional framework of the work/nonwork domain was suggested, based on the extant literature. The definition was tested empirically by applying Guttman's Smallest Space Analysis to a reanalysis of Rousseau's (1978) data. An empirical double-ordered conceptual system, a radex structure, was obtained, reflecting the two facets of the definition: behavior modality (instrumental, affective, and cognitive) and life areas (work, nonwork). The facet approach applied in this study suggests that the various aspects of the domain may be characterized by different patterns of relationships. Results showed a segmented type of relationship in the cognitive region and spillover in the instrumental region, thus supporting the facet approach rather than the conventional approaches, which consider work and nonwork as unitary concepts and attempt to establish which of three proposed patterns—compensation, spillover, or segmentation—best characterizes their relationship.

The Purposive Evaluation of Places

A multivariate, purposive model of the experience of places is offered as a theoretical basis for place evaluation. This model suggests a structure to the evaluation of places that may be generalizable across most settings. The structure derives from the definition of place evaluation as the degree to which a person sees a place as helping to achieve that person's goals at various levels of interaction with that place. In order to test empirically this framework, use is made of the facet approach to theory specification and hypothesis testing. Smallest Space analyses of two large scale questionnaire surveys, one of housing satisfaction and the other of hospital ward design, provide strong support for the purposive model. Implications of this multivariate model for future evaluations are discussed, together with the value of harnessing the facet approach to aid the development of evaluation theory.

A cross-cultural examination of scientists' perceived importance of work characteristics

This study examines the attitudes of scientists of different sociocultural backgrounds to a set of work characteristics. Two samples of scientists who have recently immigrated to Israel—from the USSR and the United States—are investigated. Drawing on the idea that science is not culture-free or context-independent, it is proposed that the two groups will differ in their valuation of certain job characteristics. Application of the Facet Approach and Smallest Space Analysis show a marked structural similarity between the Soviet and the American scientists in reference to all job factors investigated except one. Namely, the “opportunity to contribute to society” is perceived as a social activity and goal by the Russians, whereas American scientists view this aspect as part of the professional attributes of their work.

The potential of facet theory for applied social psychology

In order to illustrate a relatively new approach to research methods and data analysis, most commonly referred to as facet theory (Gratch, 1973), the present paper describes three examples of the approach in use. The range of data types and variety of modes of analysis which can be accommodated by this approach are exemplified, starting with a simple example dealing with energy conservation in universities, then moving on to examine differences between prisoners and staff in their evaluation of prison buildings, and finally considering the more complex methodological issues involved in establishing the structure of housing satisfaction. However, whilst this paper essentially concerns research procedures, especially the use of multivariate statistics, I wish to make the case that the facet approach holds particular potential for applied social psychology.

Facet Approach to Applied Research

The paper outlines the contribution of facet theory to applied psychological research. This contribution is due to the ability of facet theory to define problems and the solutions to them in terms relevant to those who wish to make practical use of the research findings. The use of facet theory in applied research is illustrated through three examples.

The facet design approach to the construction of multivariate marketing models

Introduces the concept of facet meta theory for the development of marketing theories proposes that this technique is effective in that it leads to systematic formulation of hypotheses, the definition an design of multivariate marketing studies and the analysis of data. Applies the facet approach to the marketing problem, where it is a relatively new concept, and suggests that it is a valuable model to use.

Ocean Surface Bias on Doppler System Output

Usually, the Doppler output of a sonar system is assumed to be monochromatic. The random variation of ocean surface and bottom significantly alter this assumed monochromatic nature of the Doppler signal into a frequeucy band-limited output. The surface heights are assumed to be normally distributed; the facet approach is used to show their effect on the Doppler term. For instance, a transmitted signal: et(t) = sin ωct becomes: ẽr(t) = à sin(ωcf+φ̃d+φ̃a). The random amplitude modulation à and its associated phase-angle modulation φ̃a have been previously shown to be strictly surface-caused effects, whereas φ̃d is the surface-caused randomly varying Doppler term, if one takes out the transmitter beam-modulalation effects. The long time averages of à and φ̃d have been shown to be statistically independent, Rayleigh and uniformly distributed, respectively. Beating of the received signal ẽr(t) with the local oscillator producing the carrier frequency ωc and passing it through the low-pass filter to get rid of 2ωc term results in ēr′ = à sin(φd+φa). Under quite general conditions, the probability density function of ẽr′ was shown to be Gaussian. This result was then verified from experimental data obtained by an underwater Doppler system as well as by its laboratory ultrasonic simulation at the University of Houston in a 20-ft-, 25-ft-deep water tank. Results of the experimental data analysis seem to support the theoretical results discussed earlier. [Work sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (Acoustics Branch).]