The Emperor Has No Blanket!

While we applaud Bruineberg et al.’s analysis of the differences between Markov blankets and Friston blankets, we think it is not carried out to its ultimate consequences. There are reasons to think that, once Friston blankets are accepted as a theoretical construct, they do not do the work proponents of FEP attribute to them. The emperor is indeed naked.

Implicit Perceptions and Explicit Messages

The present study offers implications for teacher-researchers by expanding prior ethnographic literacy research providing knowledge and understanding to educators interested in home-based family literacy activities and functions and the interface between these and school-based literacy expectations from public school educators. While generalizations cannot be made to all Hispanic families based on the data from the research family, a theoretical construct can be built based on data gathered. In understanding the data from this study, educators can contemplate and move away from negative assumptions about what literacies occur in the households of poor, minority families. Educators can then build confident relationships with families if and only when there is real knowledge of and from families themselves.

"In others we trust": Finland and Norway – High Trust Societies in the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic, trust has been identified as a key mechanism in pandemic containment. Norway and Finland, two Nordic countries with high trust scores, are cited as best-practice examples. In a qualitative research project on the theoretical construct of caring economics conducted by the author, the deep societal anchoring of trust and integrity has been confirmed in both countries. Based on the empirical example of the Nordic countries, the concept of caring economics emphasizes partnerism and thereby the real wealth of nations. Dugnad/Dugnadsånd, which refers to collective effort, is a trust-based Norwegian type of commons and commoning that can be regarded as an intersection with caring economics. Dugnad/Dugnadsånd integrates the various notions of interpersonal, system, and institutional trust, and thus widely supports mechanisms of pandemic control.

The t-test, resource pooling, and psi: why the minimum sample size counts towards theoretical progress in behavioral science

A theoretical construct that subsumes an empirical phenomenon should rest on statistically significant test-results with high replication probably. To statistically establish such test-results, behavioral science publications typically rely on a t-test, and researchers typically operate under limited data collection resources. To publish more test-results, or to publish an individual result sooner, questionable strategies are commonly used to reduce data collection cost. One strategy is to increase the β-error rate from 0.05 to 0.20; a second strategy is to treat the control group as a constant, collapsing a two sample t-test into a one sample t-test. Both strategies happen to underlie Bem’s (2011) rightly controversial results on human precognition (“psi hypothesis” [Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 3, 407-425]). Since both strategies undermine theoretical research in behavioral science, their ubiquity partially explains the rarity of well-corroborated theoretical constructs there. We advocate collaboration between individual labs as a viable route to enabling theoretical research by collecting a large enough sample jointly.

HUMAN FACTORS IN SHIP DESIGN AND OPERATION: A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF THE THEORETICAL CONSTRUCT

This technical note presents an analysis of the underlying factors of human factors in ship design based on questionnaires distributed on two offshore supply vessels operating in the Norwegian Sea. The concept of human factors in ship design is still evolving. The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary model of the human factors construct by using a factor analysis method. The results confirm the existence of controllability, workability and habitability as the principal factors of human factors in ship design. Three other factors that emerged are cargo facilities, reliability, automation and maintainability (RAM) and interfacing complexity. Bridging variables found between these factors include elements such as safety, manoeuvring, engine room and bridge design. A preliminary model of how the components or parts relate to human factors in ship design and operation is developed. The model also indicates the parties who are responsible for the various aspects of ship design from a human factors perspective.

Three aspects of an empirical effect: statistical, theoretical, and practical aspect

A transparent evaluation of an empirical effect’s relevance is based on the size of effect (statistical aspect), a theoretical construct’s ability to adequately predict the effect (theoretical aspect), and the effect’s practical utility (practical aspect). In behavioral science publications, however, all three aspects are often found conflated. Already if only the practical aspect is evaluated independently of the other two aspects, disagreements about the effect’s relevance turn out to be resolvable. And, if also the statistical aspect is evaluated independently of the theoretical aspect, then the ‘smallest effect of interest’ turns out to be much larger when predicting an effect (statistical aspect) as opposed to explaining it (theoretical aspect). Crucially, behavioral science publications today typically report either small, homogenous empirical effects or large, heterogeneous ones. This pattern greatly impairs the prospects for theory construction in behavioral science, because an empirically adequate theoretical construct would have to predict a larger and more homogenous empirical effect than can be observed.

Environmental Movements in North-East India: Political Opportunity Structure and Movement Success

Since the last two decades, the North-East region of India witnessed many environmental movements with similar goals and forms of mobilisation that challenged government policies and actions. Many of them achieved their goals or objectives whereas others failed. This study is an attempt to understand the factors that determined the success and failure of those movements and protests by employing rich details of four case studies from the North-East to make a systematic comparison. This study uses political opportunity structure as a theoretical construct to understand relative success and failure of environmental movements in the North-East.

Comparing the Effects of Different Post-Listening Output Tasks on Second Language Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition: Revisiting the Involvement Load Hypothesis

Based on the Involvement Load Hypothesis, the present study investigated the differential effects of three post-listening output tasks (gap-filling, translation, and sentence-making) on immediate acquisition and retention of such vocabulary dimensions as productive knowledge of orthography, receptive recall of meaning and form, and productive knowledge of grammatical functions. Ninety second-year English majors were divided into three groups to finish listening plus one of the post-listening tasks. The results showed that the post-listening output tasks had positive effects on immediate acquisition of productive vocabulary knowledge, partially in agreement with the Involvement Load Hypothesis. However, the effects on vocabulary knowledge retention were found to be largely inconsistent with the Involvement Load Hypothesis. The finding thus challenges this hypothesis in that involvement load is not the only determining factor and suggests that the theoretical construct of involvement load should be constructed with more caution.

A Cognitive Measure of Entrepreneurial Alertness

Alertness is a foundational concept in current understandings of the spotting and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Yet, despite being identified as a key theoretical construct of individual entrepreneurs, its cognitive features are not fully described in the literature. And as a result, the existing instruments for measuring this cognitive feature of entrepreneurs do not fully reflect the broad nature of this concept. In this study, the cognitive theoretical basis of alertness is reviewed and a new scale, which better reflects the broader cognitive features of entrepreneurial alertness, is presented. This may assist the validity of future empirical studies that involve entrepreneurial alertness.