Measuring Fear of Failure

Fear of failure (FF) is a multidimensional construct encompassing anticipated negative consequences deriving from potential failures in evaluative achievement contexts, such as education or sports. The Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI; Conroy et al., 2002 ) assesses five threat appraisals associated with FF and has been validated in various cultures, languages, and contexts. To date, there is no instrument measuring FF in an academic context in German. Thus, this study examined the psychometric properties of a German version of the PFAI in a sample of N = 326 university students. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a correlated five-factor structure that has already been established in previous validation studies as well as a bifactor structure. All dimensions demonstrated satisfactory internal consistencies and construct validity. Within the scope of this study, the German version of the PFAI was found to be a psychometrically sound measure to assess FF in an academic context amongst university students.

Police discretion in encounters with people who use drugs: operationalizing the theory of planned behavior

Background Policing shapes the health risks of people who use drugs (PWUD), but little is understood about interventions that can align officer practices with PWUD health. This study deploys the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to understand what influences police intentions to make discretionary referrals to treatment and harm reduction resources rather than arrest on less serious charges. Methods On-line surveys integrating TPB constructs and adapting an instrument measuring police intentions to make mental health treatment referrals were completed by police employees in Indiana, Massachusetts, and Missouri. They also included items about stigma towards PWUD and attitudes and beliefs about opioid addiction, treatment, and recovery. Findings Across the sites, 259 respondents perceived control over their decision to arrest for misdemeanors (69%) and confiscate items such as syringes (56%). Beliefs about others’ approval of referrals to treatment, its ability to reduce future arrests, and to increase trust in police were associated with stated practices of nonarrest for drug and possession and making referrals (p ≤ .001), and nonarrest for syringe possession (p ≤ .05). Stigma a towards PWUD was negatively associated with stated practices of nonarrest (p ≤ .05). Respondents identified supervisors as having the most influence over use of discretion, seriousness of the offense as the most influential value, and attitude of the suspect as the most important situational factor. The 17 Likert scale items analyzed had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.81. Conclusion The TPB offers untapped potential to better understand and modify police practices. In designing interventions to improve the health outcomes of police encounters with PWUD, further research should validate instruments that measure the relationship between these variables and discretionary intentions, and that measure role-relevant police stigma towards PWUD.

Measuring COVID-19 Related Health Literacy in Healthcare Professionals—Psychometric Evaluation of the HL-COV-HP Instrument

Background: Thus far, there is no instrument available measuring COVID-19 related health literacy of healthcare professionals. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop an instrument assessing COVID-19 related health literacy in healthcare professionals (HL-COV-HP) and evaluate its psychometric properties. Methods: An exploratory factor analysis, a confirmatory factor analysis, and descriptive analyses were conducted using data from n = 965 healthcare professionals. Health literacy related to COVID-19 was measured with 12 items, which were adapted from the validated HLS-EU-Q16 instrument measuring general health literacy. Results: Exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that 12 items loaded on one component. After removing one item due to its high standardized residual covariance, the confirmatory factor analysis of a one-factor model with 11 items showed satisfactory model fit (χ2 = 199.340, df = 41, χ2/df = 4.862, p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.063, CFI = 0.963 and TLI = 0.951). The HL-COV-HP instrument showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha 0.87) and acceptable construct reliability. Conclusions: The HL-COV-HP is a reliable, valid, and feasible instrument to assess the COVID-19 related health literacy in healthcare professionals. It can be used in hospitals or other healt hcare settings to assess the motivation and ability of healthcare professionals to find, understand, evaluate, and use COVID-19 information.

Students’ digital competence: A scoping review of measuring instruments

In today’s society, digital competence is becoming increasingly relevant, as this competence is necessary to function on both a personal and professional level. Digital competence is essential for students, since it enables them to exist in a digitalised world. Over the last few decades, the concept of digital competence has been used more frequently (Spante et al., 2018), and now it is actively discussed, particularly in terms of policy documents (European Council, 2018; European Commission, 2014; European Commission 2021). During the discussions related to policy, the following questions have been raised: 1) what kind of skills and knowledge people should possess in a knowledge society, and 2) what should be taught to young students and how it has to be done (Ilomäki et al., 2016). The purpose of the present scoping review is to provide a comprehensive overview of relevant research regarding the instruments commonly used to measure digital competence of university students. Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five-stage framework underpins the scoping review. Three databases were used to conduct a scoping literature review, including ERIC, ProQuest and EBSCO. The inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed publications written in English within the period from 2014 till 2020. Initially, 395 articles in total were selected; the full texts of 43 articles were assessed. Finally, only 13 out 395 articles that met the inclusion criteria were considered in the present research. This paper reports on three main categories: (1) definition of digital competence, (2) development and characteristics of an instrument measuring digital competence, and (3) key findings. The most commonly used framework found during this research was The European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens 2.0. (Vuorikari et al., 2016). A larger part of studies reports on a designed self-assessment questionnaire comprising of multiple-choice items and quantitative evaluation of the competence. The scoping review showed that the majority of the existing tests enable to assess students’ digital information searching, communication and technical skills. The findings of previous studies indicate that students tend to overestimate their digital competence and lack knowledge of basic topics, the ones related to information and data literacy. Our findings point to the necessity to use different approaches for assessing digital competence on different levels.

Bullying-Related Social Skills Instrument: within the Extracurricular Activities in Educational Context

The purpose of this study is to develop an instrument to measure the level of social skills of children with disabilites related to bullying behavior. This is a developmental research, where the instruments that was developed is in the form of self-assessed questionnaire. The social skills instrument developed was using four dimensions that strongly related to bullying behavior, namely, emphaty, self-control, assertiveness, and cooperation. The development process were following four stages. First, a literature review was conducted for constructing the operational definition. Items for the instrument were 3 point Likert-type. The instruments then validated by peer evaluation and its reliability measured using internal consistency method. The result of the study is an instrument measuring the bullying-related social skills which ideally used within the extracurricular activities context where all children gather to socialized in a controlled environment.

Psychometric properties of an instrument 3: convergent, discriminant, known-groups, and criterion validity

Before evaluating convergent, discriminant, and known-groups validity, it is suggested to design an instrument that reflects hypothetical relationships or differences with other comparator instruments or groups. For criterion validity, a gold-standard instrument measuring the same construct should be carefully selected.

Harmful Leader Behaviors: Toward an Increased Understanding of How Different Forms of Unethical Leader Behavior Can Harm Subordinates

Research on unethical leadership has predominantly focused on interpersonal and high-intensity forms of harmful leader behavior such as abusive supervision. Other forms of harmful leader behavior such as excessively pressuring subordinates or acting in self-centered ways have received less attention, despite being harmful and potentially occurring more frequently. We propose a model of four types of harmful leader behavior (HLB) varying in intensity (high vs low) and orientation (people/relationships or tasks/goals): Intimidation, Lack of Care, Self-Centeredness, and Excessive Pressure for Results. We map out how these relate to other constructs in the unethical leader behavior field in order to integrate the existing work on how leaders can cause harm to followers. Next, in five studies (N = 35, N = 218, N = 352, N = 160, N = 1921 in 196 teams), we develop and test a new survey instrument measuring the four proposed types of perceived HLB. We provide initial validity evidence for this new measure, establish its psychometric properties, and examine its nomological network by linking the four types of HLB to related leadership constructs and soft and hard outcome correlates at the individual and team level. We find that HLB is negatively related to constructive forms of leadership (e.g., ethical and transformational) and positively to unethical ones (e.g., abusive supervision). HLB is also related in the expected direction to job satisfaction, engagement, psychological safety, knowledge sharing, knowledge hiding, deviance, and objectively recorded team-level stress-related absenteeism.