Quantitative Psychology Commons^™

Using Bayesian Generalized Structural Equation Modeling To Analyze Latent Agreement, Sydne T. Mccluskey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rater comparison analysis is commonly necessary in the social sciences. Conventional approaches to the problem generally focus on calculation of agreement statistics, which provide useful but incomplete information about rater agreement. Importantly, one-number agreement statistics give no indication regarding the nature of disagreements, nor do they distinguish between agreement on presence versus absence of a state or trait. Latent variable models can address both problems, as well as overcoming other well-documented limitations of agreement statistics (e.g., sample dependence, inappropriate population assumptions). Whether raters exactly agree is usually not the question of interest – researchers almost never care whether the difference …

Inspirational Bullshit: The Good, The Bad, And The Vacuous, Esther Abel

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

There are myriad methods offered in the “self-help industry” and on social media promising to improve happiness. Some messages are evidence-based, often drawn from positive psychology research, and suggest actions requiring time and effort, while other messages may offer feel-good platitudes that are devoid of meaningful guidance; we label this latter type of content “inspirational bullshit.” Across two manuscripts, we investigate the predictors of liking different kinds of positive self-help content, from meaningless randomly-generated phrases to vacuous positivity to evidence-based advice. In the first manuscript, across three studies, bullshit receptivity (a tendency to judge pseudo-profound statements as profound) and people’s …

Occupational Depression In Italy: Associations With Health, Economic, And Work-Life Characteristics, Renzo Bianchi, Caterina Fiorilli, Giacomo Angelini, Nicoletta Dozio, Carlo Palazzi, Gloria Palazzi, Benedetto Vitiello, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Background: The Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) reflects a new approach to job-related distress centered on work-attributed depressive symptoms. The instrument was developed with reference to the characterization of major depression found in the DSM-5. The ODI has been validated in English, French, and Spanish. This study (a) investigated the psychometric and structural properties of the ODI’s Italian version and (b) inquired into the nomological network of occupational depression. Methods: A convenience sample of 963 employed individuals was recruited in Italy (69.9% female; mean age = 40.433). We notably relied on exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis, common-practice …

An Investigation Of Lab-Based Research Procedural Fidelity: The Relationship Between Experimenter Infant-Directed Speech, Temperament And Language Proficiency, Tess A. Simpson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether developmental researchers were influenced in the laboratory by the characteristics of children who participate in their research. I hypothesized that experimenters, as social partners, would adapt their speaking and other behaviors to the child’s perceived temperamental profile and language proficiency. I specifically focused on whether experimenters would adhere to the experimental laboratory procedure of two elicited imitation tasks, Feed Bear and Make a Rattle, in an archival dataset. Participants included 61 primarily white 15-month-olds. Coders transcribed infant directed speech (IDS) and analyzed transcriptions for total words, words per sentence, and …

Thematic Consistency Between Criminal History And Crime Scene Behaviors: Comparing Sexual Homicide Offenders With And Without Criminal Histories Of Sexual Offenses, Shannon E. Ettinger

Student Theses

Offender profiling research suggests that offenders may display behavioral consistency, meaning they may behave in some consistent manner between their crime scene actions and other aspects of their lives. Through behavioral themes, researchers can identify consistency in groups of individual behaviors that are thematically similar. Previous literature successfully applied the Expressive/Instrumental themes to homicide crime scene behaviors and criminal history. The current study aims to apply the Expressive/Instrumental thematic approach to analyzing the relationship between sexual homicide offender’s criminal history and their crime scene behaviors. The present study focuses on the distinction between sexual homicide offenders with a history of …

Sentiment Analysis In Application To Behavior Prediction, Anna Singley

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Towards More Task-Generalized And Explainable Ai Through Psychometrics, Alec Braynen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we propose that adopting the methods, principles, and guidelines of the field of psychometrics can help the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community to build more task-generalizable and explainable AI. Three arguments are presented and explored. These arguments are that psychometrics can help by providing 1) a framework for formulating better datasets, 2) psychometric AI data that can lead to models of generalization in AI, and 3) explainable AI through more informative evaluations.

A review of psychometrics and psychological generalization is performed, along with an overview of evaluation, generalization, and explainability in AI. Various ideas are presented throughout for …

Public Acceptance Of Medical Screening Recommendations, Safety Risks, And Implied Liabilities Requirements For Space Flight Participation, Cory J. Trunkhill

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The space tourism industry is preparing to send space flight participants on orbital and suborbital flights. Space flight participants are not professional astronauts and are not subject to the rules and guidelines covering space flight crewmembers. This research addresses public acceptance of current Federal Aviation Administration guidance and regulations as designated for civil participation in human space flight.

The research utilized an ordinal linear regression analysis of survey data to explore the public acceptance of the current medical screening recommended guidance and the regulations for safety risk and implied liability for space flight participation. Independent variables constituted participant demographic representations …

Researcher And Academic Library Roles And User Beliefs In The Pandemic: Designing The Open-Access And Library Usage Scale (Oalu), Elizabeth Dezouche, Angelique Blackburn

Killam Library Faculty Publications

We investigated whether individuals believe they have a right to information during a crisis, and whether attitudes about crisis-related information sharing differ by age and one’s role in providing or consuming information. We measured attitudes about aspects of data sharing related to COVID-19: researchers’ obligation to share data, publishers’ obligation to share information, and libraries’ responsibility to provide them. We predicted younger individuals, especially students as consumers of information, would report stronger preference for open access to pandemic-related information. A principal components analysis was performed, and two predicted factors emerged: information-sharing obligations and libraries’ responsibility to provide resources. Age was …

Do Educators Value The Promotion Of Students’ Wellbeing? Quantifying Educators’ Attitudes Toward Wellbeing Promotion, David Byrne Phd, Colm Mcguinness Phd, Aiden Carthy Phd

Articles

Educators’ attitudes toward Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and health and wellbeing promotion can significantly influence the success (or otherwise) of such policies and practices. While numerous studies exist, from which a broad understanding of such attitudes can be garnered, there is currently no attendant measurement which quantifies educators attitudes regarding the promotion of student wellbeing. The aim of this study was to address this gap in knowledge by quantifying the degree to which educators are positively or negatively disposed to the promotion of student wellbeing. The Attitudes Toward Wellbeing Promotion (ATWP) scale was administered …

A Latent Class Analysis Of Personality Traits With Educational Attainment, Tyler Minter

Public Access Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research from the College of Education and Human Sciences

The five-factor model of personality (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience) is an empirically based personality model that has been utilized in multiple psychological assessments. Recent works have found Block & Block’s (1980) three personality profiles (resilient, overcontrolled, undercontrolled) within the context of the five-factor model. This study performed a latent class analysis using a short FFM assessment from the SAPA project, a free online personality test. The intention of this study was to replicate the three personality profiles within the five-factor model. Four latent classes were included in the final solution. Two of the three personality profiles emerged …

Posttraumatic Growth And Primal World Beliefs Among People Who Have Caused Accidental Death Or Serious Injury, Mark L. O'Brien

Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects

Background. Posttraumatic growth (PTG)—positive changes that people may experience in the aftermath of highly distressing experiences—has been observed in survivors of a variety of events but has not been previously studied among people who have caused accidental death or injury (PCADIs). In addition, questions remain about the role, in PTG, of changes in the assumptive world and the relationships between PTG and distress, personality, and social support. Methods. Participants (N = 528), included PCADIs (n = 44) and a non-trauma comparison group (n = 484), who completed the Primals Inventory and measures of personality, anxiety, and depression. …

Individual Characteristics Of Postsecondary Underachievement, Natasha Godkin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Underachievement in postsecondary education has been a growing concern for educators and researchers. Higher education institutions have implemented early alert systems to identify students performing below standards. This early warning system has major limitations that confine it to an identification only approach. The current study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Student Attitude Assessment Survey-R (SAAS-R) in a postsecondary sample. First, a confirmatory factor analysis validated the SAAS-R in a postsecondary sample. Predictive validity was then investigated by identifying students as underachieving or achieving based on responses to the SAAS-R and via a regression-based discrepancy model (ability vs. …

Evaluating Outcome Factors Of Childhood Emotional Neglect: An Exploratory Factor Analysis, Taylor Levitt

Dissertations

Experiencing childhood maltreatment has been shown to have major implications on adult outcomes. Less is known about the outcomes of childhood emotional neglect (CEN). The purpose of this study was to identify factors related to psychological outcomes of CEN within the domains of depression, anxiety, and alexithymia as a precursor to the development of an inventory. One hundred and fifty participant responses on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) were collected. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted where nine factors yielded significant results and were titled, “Depressive Symptoms,” “Difficulty Identifying Feelings,” “Usefulness of …

Prevalence And Predictors Of Careless Responding In Experience Sampling Research, Alexander J. Denison

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the current study we examine the prevalence and several predictors of careless responding to an experience sampling (ESM) study. While careless responding has been noted as a potential problem in ESM research, few studies have examined the prevalence of this behavior (Beal, 2015; Berkel et al., 2017; Eisele et al., 2020; Gabriel et al., 2019; Jaso et al., 2021). Using statistical methods of careless response classification, we derive cut scores from data simulation and graphical examination of item correlations, and flag 44.98% of response episodes as careless. A majority of these flagged episodes were the product of overly consistent …

Lgbtq+ Congregants Navigating Identity In The Context Of "Welcoming But Not Affirming" Evangelical, Pentecostal, And Non-Denominational Religious Institutions: A Queer Narrative Analysis, Sarah E. Rasmussen

University Honors Theses

Welcoming but not affirming Evangelical, Pentecostal, and non-denominational churches invite LGBTQ+ people to attend their church, but do not affirm their identity as a gender and/or sexual minority. Because of this, they restrict LGBTQ+ attendees from participating in leadership, paid staff positions, and ministry work. LGBTQ+ attendees are often not aware of these restrictive policies initially. The current study aims to examine how LGBTQ+ people navigate their faith and identity within welcoming but not affirming church spaces through narrative analysis. Fifteen participants engaged in an interview, where they were asked about their experience within welcoming but not affirming church spaces. …

The Interplay Between Perceived Usability And Quality In Visual Design For Tablet Game Interfaces, Uttam Kokil, Tracy Harwood

Faculty Publications

Research in human-computer interaction (HCI) has shown inconsistencies in the relationship between users’ perception of usability and the quality of visual design in digital products. Research is lacking in the gaming domain for visual design in user interfaces on tablet screens. Despite extensive research on visual aesthetics and perceived usability, best practices offer limited guidance for game interfaces from a user-centered design perspective.

The objectives of this study are twofold: to employ a design-oriented methodology to create a real iOS tablet game app from start to finish using ideation, focus groups, iterative prototyping, usability testing, and empirically evaluating game participants’ …

Constraining Computational Models Of Brightness Perception: What’S The Right Psychophysical Data?, Guillermo Aguilar, Joris Vincent, Marianne Maertens

MODVIS Workshop

No abstract provided.

Writing While Black: African American Vernacular English (Aave) And Perceived Writing Performance, Jaylin N. Nesbitt

Masters Theses, 2020-current

In the education system, there have historically been inequities that have severely disadvantaged Black students academically. One area in which these inequities surface is on writing assessments in the form of lower scores. I argue that because the U.S. education system is centered around Standard American English (SAE), it disadvantages those from different linguistic backgrounds, specifically Black students, as they are most likely to be speakers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Although there are theoretical justifications for this, past literature has not empirically tied inequities on writing assessments to Black students’ use of AAVE. The current study used Natural …

Professional Manual For The Parent Reaction To Autism Diagnosis Scales (Prads-2) With Guidance For Tailoring Parent Supports, Kathleen A. Brewer M.A., Mary B. Gruber Ph.D. Bcba-D

Textbooks and Manuals Series

The Parent Reaction to Autism Diagnosis Scales (PRADS-2) is a 60-item survey, which provides 15 scale scores to measure a parent’s specific areas of strengths and difficulties in raising their child with autism. The measure allows researchers to obtain objective data on parent responses, and it allows service providers to tailor specific supports for parents. This peer-reviewed professional manual describes our research, statistical development, and validation of the scales, and then describes the steps for applications in service work, specifying how our measure may be used accurately, ethically, and compassionately, for the benefit of parents and families. The manual …

Impact Of Mindfulness On Test Anxiety In College Students, Lindsay Alcock

Honors Program Projects

Background

Mindfulness is defined as the state of giving full attention to a stimulus, internal or external, without inducing judgment or becoming reactional about the feelings experienced, positive or negative (Davis & Hayes, 2012). Previous studies have investigated the relationship between mindfulness techniques and the reduction of anxiety (Chambers et al., 2008; Macdonald & Olsen, 2020); a smaller number of studies have considered test anxiety (Cho et al., 2016; Sparks, 2017). Prior research has used multiple mindfulness techniques to measure the impact on test anxiety, but few have isolated mindfulness trainings to compare the relative impact of each type on …

Non-Verbal Pride Expressions As A Predictor Of Lgbtq Health, Craig Gilbert

Theses and Dissertations

Pride is a self-conscious, positive emotion that has been assessed in a wide range of populations and with a variety of pre-validated measures. Research has shown that the presence of pride can function as a potential resilience factor against minority based stress and has been linked to increased emotional well being, life satisfaction, and self-esteem. However, a majority of this research relies upon self-report questionnaires as opposed to observational data. To evaluate the predictive power of non-verbal pride behaviors, a group of LGBTQ+ individuals (n=125) were asked during a recorded interview to describe an experience where they felt prideful about …

Reinstatement Candidate Credentialing Exam Performance: Evaluating The Persistence Of Misinformed Responses On Multiple Choice Items, Ben Babcock, Zachary D. Siegel

Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation

Research about repeated testing has revealed that retaking the same exam form generally does not advantage or disadvantage failing candidates in selected response-style credentialing exams. Feinberg, Raymond, and Haist (2015) found a contributing factor to this phenomenon: people answering items incorrectly on both attempts give the same incorrect response about 2/3 of the time. They concluded that examinees are misinformed, rather than uninformed, about these items. The current research investigated whether reinstatement candidates followed similar patterns. Reinstatement candidates are people that obtain a credential, later discontinue the credential, then retake the exam to regain the credential. Data came from a …

An Introduction To The Analysis Of Ranked Response Data, Holmes Finch

Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation

Researchers in many disciplines work with ranking data. This data type is unique in that it is often deterministic in nature (the ranks of items k-1 determine the rank of item k), and the difference in a pair of rank scores separated by k units is equivalent regardless of the actual values of the two ranks in the pair. Given its unique qualities, there are specific statistical analyses and models designed for use with ranking data. The purpose of this manuscript is to demonstrate a strategy for analyzing ranking data from sample description through the modeling of relative …

People Remember Liked Political Policies As Having Been Attributed To Their Own Party, Dalton Thomas Bailey

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A robust finding in psychology shows that people tend to like information more when it supports their existing beliefs, or comes from their own ingroup, a finding known as motivated reasoning. These findings are especially prominent in a political context. Quite consistently, research suggests people increase their liking of political information like political policies when they are attributed to their own party. What is unknown, however, is if people also tend to attribute personally liked information to their own party. These studies were conducted to investigate this question.

Two, within-subjects studies were conducted. In both, participants (undergraduate students) saw various …

Educational Intervention Program For Young Voters: Improving Political Knowledge And Voting Behavior In The 2020 Simultaneous Local Elections, Muhammad Abdan Shadiqi, Gusti Ernawati, Rima Hariati, Khaerullah Fadhli Hasan Arasy, Noor I’Anah, Wita Al Istiqomah, Ulfiyah Nanda Firman, Neka Erlyani

Jurnal Politik

Young voters' low level of political knowledge, which impacts political participation, is still a phenomenon today. The influence of political knowledge on young voters' behavior is still being debated, and there is little empirical evidence, especially regarding political knowledge and voting behavior enhanced through specific educational programs. Therefore, an effective education program is needed to increase political knowledge and the desire of young voters to participate in general elections. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of educational programs in increasing political knowledge and shaping voting behavior among young voters in South Kalimantan Local Elections (Pilkada). We used a quasi-experimental …

Creating A Short, Public-Domain Version Of The Cpai-2: Using An Algorithmic Approach To Develop Public-Domain Measures Of Indigenous Personality Traits, Mukhunth Raghavan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study we aimed to create a short, public-domain analogue of the Cross-Cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI-2; F. M. Cheung et al., 1996). Emic (culture-specific) traits measured by the CPAI-2 are purportedly specific to the Chinese culture and argued to not be fully captured by the consensus Big Five personality trait taxonomy. Research suggests that CPAI-2 traits may have unique predictive power, especially in non-Western contexts. However, research has been hampered by several limitations of the measure. The inventory is proprietary and long, with 341 items forming 28 scales and four factors. Cross-cultural personality research would benefit from …

Autocorrelation Screening: A Potentially Efficient Method For Detecting Repetitive Response Patterns In Questionnaire Data, Jaroslav Gottfried, Stanislav Ježek, Maria Králová, Tomáš Řiháček

Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation

Valid data are essential for making correct theoretical and practical implications. Hence, efficient methods for detecting and excluding data with dubious validity are highly valuable in any field of science. This paper introduces the idea of applying autocorrelation analysis on self-report questionnaires with single-choice numbered, preferably Likert-type, scales in order to screen out potentially invalid data, specifically repetitive response patterns. We explain mathematical principles of autocorrelation in a simple manner and illustrate how to efficiently perform detection of invalid data and how to correctly interpret the results. We conclude that autocorrelation screening could be a valuable screening tool for assessing …

Self-Conscious Emotions And The Right Fronto-Temporal And Right Temporal Parietal Junction, Adriana Lavarco, Nathira Ahmad, Qiana Archer, Matthew Pardillo, Ray Nunez Castaneda, Anthony Minervini, Julian Keenan

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

For more than two decades, research focusing on both clinical and non-clinical populations has suggested a key role for specific regions in the regulation of self-conscious emotions. It is speculated that both the expression and the interpretation of self-conscious emotions are critical in humans for action planning and response, communication, learning, parenting, and most social encounters. Empathy, Guilt, Jealousy, Shame, and Pride are all categorized as self-conscious emotions, all of which are crucial components to one’s sense of self. There has been an abundance of evidence pointing to the right Fronto-Temporal involvement in the integration of cognitive processes underlying the …

A Monte Carlo Simulation Of Rat Choice Behavior With Interdependent Outcomes, Michelle A. Frankot

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Preclinical behavioral neuroscience often uses choice paradigms to capture psychiatric symptoms. In particular, the subfield of operant research produces nested datasets with many discrete choices in a session. The standard analytic practice is to aggregate choice into a continuous variable and analyze using ANOVA or linear regression. However, choice data often have multiple interdependent outcomes of interest, violating an assumption of general linear models. The aim of the current study was to quantify the accuracy of linear mixed-effects regression (LMER) for analyzing data from a 4-choice operant task called the Rodent Gambling Task (RGT), which measures decision-making in the context …